The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam will present a major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama, opening on 11 September and running through 28 February 2027. Developed in close collaboration with the artist and her studio, alongside Fondation Beyeler and Museum Ludwig, the exhibition will be the most comprehensive survey of Kusama’s work to date.

Spanning more than seven decades, the presentation moves fluidly between early works made in Japan, rarely shown pieces never before exhibited in Europe, and the canonical works that have defined her global recognition. Among them are key installations and one of her immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms, alongside new productions created specifically for this occasion.

As Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk Museum, notes, Kusama continues to reframe perception itself, drawing viewers into a world where seeing becomes an act of surrender, and repetition a form of infinity.

Now in her late nineties, Kusama remains one of contemporary art’s most recognisable figures. Her visual language, built from repetition, accumulation, and hypnotic pattern, has become instantly identifiable, from the iconic polka dot to the infinite spatial logic of mirrored environments. What began as radical experimentation in the 1960s New York art world evolved into a singular cosmology of perception, one that continues to draw audiences into disorienting, expansive spaces of colour and reflection.

Alongside her best-known works, the exhibition traces a broader, more experimental practice: painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, collage, fashion, performance, and the so-called “happenings” through which Kusama staged provocative interventions in public space. In doing so, she emerged not only as a pioneer of immersive installation but also as one of the first female Asian artists to assert a radical, visible presence within the male-dominated avant-garde of post-war New York.