The Biggest Yayoi Kusama Exhibit in Asia Outside of Japan Is Coming to Hong Kong

As Hong Kong opens to tourists again, its M+, West Kowloon Cultural District will be celebrating its first anniversary. With the celebration comes the largest Yayoi Kusama retrospective in Asia outside of Japan. We know what this means, right? More of her signature pumpkins and polka dots coming our way.

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now will showcase the artist's works, from her earliest days as part of an emerging Eastern minimalist movement to her shift toward pop art and performance art. We will be seeing quite the collection of the self-described "obsessional artist" and her drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations, and more.

The show will be divided into six different themes: Infinity, Accumulation, Radical Connectivity, Biocosmic, Death, and Force of Life. The special exhibition will have more than 200 pieces, including three brand new ones as a treat for visitors. This retrospect will also display works from Kusama's personal collection.

Debuting in Hong Kong will be the kaleidoscopic "Dots Obsession—Aspiring to Heaven’s Love (2022)," which is made up of Kusama's mirrored spaced and polka dots, "Death of Nerves (2022)," an installation that plays on the artist's Infinity Nets motifs, and "Pumpkin (2022)," because, well, it's Kusama and it's pumpkins.

Photo by M+, West Kowloon Cultural District.

Photo by M+, West Kowloon Cultural District.

ALSO READ:

Uniqlo's Latest Museum of Modern Art Collection Features Your Favorite Modern Masters

Art World Secrets and Tips: An Expert at the Met Museum in New York Visits Art Fair Philippines

“Yayoi Kusama is one of the most influential and inspiring artists of our time. Her Asian roots, transnational history, as well as her singular artistic language and philosophy that she has developed from the 1940s to now, have all contributed to making her the leading cultural figure she is now globally," M+ Deputy Director and Curatorial and Chief Curator Doryun Chong said in a release. "This is the first time in Greater China the full trajectory of Kusama’s art is presented in a comprehensive retrospective exhibition providing a holistic and unique perspective on the accomplishments of this visionary artist."

Photo by M+, West Kowloon Cultural District.

One of the most celebrated contemporary artists of her generation, Kusama's career now spans 70 years' worth of surrealist iconography (literally an art-imitates-life thing as seen in her wardrobe, too). The new exhibition at M+ will be featuring early sketches from her days as a teen during wartime Japan to her larger-than-life surrealist installations as a leading quirky artist-reinventionist-innovator-performer-thinker type in New York and Japan. The cultural icon deserves all the superlatives, after all.

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now will run from November 12, 2022 to May 14, 2023 at M+, West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. Special exhibition tickets are priced at HK$240 (approximately P1,800) for adults and HK$150 (approximately P1,127) for concessions. Meanwhile, general admission tickets go for HK$120 (roughly P900) for adults and HK$60 (roughly P450) for concessions. Buy tickets now on the M+ website official page.