Australia’s Largest Yayoi Kusama Exhibit Ever Debuts This Week

With her immersive infinity rooms, pumpkin sculptures, and all-encompassing obsession with polka dots, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s extensive oeuvre is something of a cultural tour de force, and she consistently ranks as the most successful contemporary woman artist on the planet.

Now, one of the largest celebrations of Kusama’s dotty world will debut at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria. It will be the largest Australian retrospective of her work and one of her biggest shows ever exhibited globally. 

The eponymous Yayoi Kusama will take over the entire bottom floor of the NGV from Dec. 14 to April 15, 2025, and feature nearly 200 works of art, some of which have never been shown Down Under before. The exhibition aims to demonstrate the evolution of Kusama’s artistic practice, from her earliest paintings, sketches, and drawings, created in her hometown of Matsumoto, Japan, to her increasingly avant-garde pieces produced in Seattle and New York City, where she established herself as an integral figure of the Pop Art movement. Personal and family photos will help fill in the storytelling gaps.    

Yayoi Kusama also includes two new, site-specific installations. Upon entering NGV’s International Great Hall, visitors will immediately find themselves within Dots Vision, an immersive exhibit involving enormous, hovering balloons. The artist has also designed a yet-to-be-revealed, custom addition to NGV’s famed waterfall. 

Visitors will undoubtedly have plenty to feast their eyes upon during Yayoi Kusama, but there are a few highlights to note. There’s Dancing Pumpkin (2020), a 16-foot-tall bronze sculpture that guests are encouraged to dance beneath. The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019) is also worth a look. This sculpture entangles viewers with 20-foot-high tentacles decorated with yellow and black polka dots. Both of these works are making their Australian debut at Yayoi Kusama.

It’s no secret that the largest draws of any Kusama exhibition are her mind-bending infinity rooms, which often spark long wait times. There will, of course, be classics like her Narcissus Garden (1966) on display at NGV. This installation — a reference to the Greek mythological figure, Narcissus — consists of 1,400 stainless steel, silver balls that reflect the viewer’s image back at them. However, Yayoi Kusama will additionally see the unveiling of a new, kaleidoscopic infinity mirror room, which is currently under development and has never been displayed before.

General admission to NGV is free, but tickets are required for Yayoi Kusama. Prices start at 38 Australian Dollars or about $25 per person.