Exhibition
Yayoi Kusama
Exhibition
Yayoi Kusama
The Retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Yayoi Kusama Exhibition in Amsterdam
Yayoi Kusama – The Major Retrospective
Exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum
11 September 2026 to 17 January 2027
Following its successful presentation at the Fondation Beyeler and its hugely popular run at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (the museum’s most successful exhibition, with 450,000 visitors), the exhibition will arrive in Amsterdam this September as its third venue, hosted by the Stedelijk Museum.
So, if you have not yet had the opportunity to see it, Amsterdam offers another chance to discover the artist Yayoi Kusama and her extraordinary body of work.
I have already visited the exhibiton on 12 of September! The article has now been supplemented with several views of the exhibition!
Info: It was announced today (August 27) that the artist Yayoi Kusama passed away on August 14 at the age of 97.
PLEASE NOTE: The regular EUR 22.50 ticket does not grant admission to the Yayoi Kusama exhibition!
You can only view the exhibition with the EUR 32.50 exhibition ticket!
Yayoi Kusama
Tickets Amsterdam
Video
Our visit on September 12th!
A quick glimpse!
We visited the Stedelijk Museum the day after it opened and checked out the Yayoi Kusama exhibition.
With this short two-minute video, we want to show you what it was like. Maybe this will really make you want to take a trip to Amsterdam, too!
Best, Céline
The Details
at a glance
Exhibition
Yayoi Kusama – The Major Retrospective
11 September 2026 to 17 January 2027
Opening Hours
Daily from 10.00 to 18.00 h
Last admission: 17.30 h (+/-)
Price:
Special exhibition ticket required!
EUR 32.50 for adults
EUR 17.50 for students
Free admission for children under 19 & I Amsterdam Card holders
Permanent collection: EUR 22.50 – so be sure to book the right one!
ICOM Card
Free admission for ICOM-Members
Who Is
Yayoi Kusama?
At the age of 97, Yayoi Kusama is one of the most talked-about figures in the art world. Her major retrospective is currently touring Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, introducing new audiences to her remarkable life and work.
But who is she? Where does she come from? And what is the secret behind her art?
Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 March 1929 in Japan. Her childhood was far from easy. At the age of twelve, during the Second World War, she worked in a parachute factory. Even more difficult, however, was her relationship with her mother, whose rejection and strict expectations left a lasting mark on her early life and contributed to the experiences that would later shape her artistic vision.
From a young age, Kusama experienced hallucinations involving dots and repeating net-like patterns. She later explained that she often felt as though she might dissolve into these endless forms. According to her own accounts, she has experienced such visions since childhood and continues to see dots everywhere even in old age. (Katharina Abel: At 97, Japan’s art icon Yayoi Kusama is Instagram-ready. In: Deutsche Welle. Abgerufen am 22. März 2026)
Between 1958 and 1972, during the Cold War, Kusama moved to New York City, where many of her most famous works and performances were created. During this period she met influential artists such as Andy Warhol and became part of the vibrant New York art scene. She later claimed that some of her ideas were adopted by other artists without proper recognition.
Photo: Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Caption: Yayoi Kusama at around ten years of age, c. 1939. © YAYOI KUSAMA
Today, Kusama is best known for her iconic polka dots. These colourful, repeating patterns appear throughout her work, covering canvases, sculptures, fabrics and even people. Over the decades, the dots have become her unmistakable artistic signature.
She is also famous for creating immersive installations filled with mirrors, which multiply the dots endlessly and create a powerful sense of infinite space. Stepping into one of these rooms can feel like entering another world — perhaps even a glimpse into the artist’s own inner universe.
Since 1977, Kusama has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo. From there, she has continued to paint, create new works, stage exhibitions and receive international awards. She also represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993. The hospital provides a stable environment that allows her to continue her creative work, and it has remained her chosen home for nearly fifty years.
Yayoi Kusama finally passed away on August 14, 2026.
Foto: Yayoi Kusama im Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam: Bildinfo: Yayoi Kusama with ‚Yellow Tree / Living Room‘ at the Aichi Triennale, 2010 © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner
about the exhibition
Yayoi Kusama – The Major Retrospective
This major retrospective offers a comprehensive overview of the life and work of Yayoi Kusama, one of the most influential artists of our time. Thanks to the exhibition’s previous presentations at the Fondation Beyeler and the Museum Ludwig, as well as the accompanying press coverage and visitor feedback, we already have a good idea of what to expect when it arrives at the Stedelijk Museum.
The exhibition will showcase works spanning more than seventy years, from Kusama’s early drawings and paintings to the immersive installations that have made her famous around the world.
The retrospective not only highlights her spectacular large-scale works but also traces her personal and artistic development. Visitors will discover her early nature-inspired drawings, featuring flowers, seeds and floral patterns. These themes can be traced back to her childhood, as her parents worked in the seed and flower trade in Japan. It was also during this period that Kusama began experiencing the hallucinations that would later become a central element of her art.
From 1958 onwards, Yayoi Kusama began creating her important Infinity Net series, shortly after arriving in New York. The paintings have no central point and no traditional composition; the pattern could seemingly continue beyond the edges of the canvas. With meticulous precision, Kusama repeatedly painted small, semicircular arcs side by side until the entire canvas was covered, creating the effect of an even, continuous net. She sometimes worked on these paintings for many hours at a time, repeating the same movement over and over again.
During this period, Kusama’s approach to painting differed significantly from the Abstract Expressionism that dominated the New York art scene at the time. While the movement was characterised by spontaneous, powerful brushstrokes and the individual gesture of the artist, Kusama employed a completely different method: not one grand gesture, but thousands of tiny ones; not dramatic expression, but uniformity and endless repetition.
These net-like patterns also have a direct connection to Kusama’s experiences of hallucinations, which she had experienced since childhood. She described seeing nets and patterns spreading across her surroundings, an experience that became an important source for her artistic practice.
The exhibition then follows her move to New York City, where she developed many of her most important ideas. During the 1960s she became involved in experimental performances, moved closer to the Pop Art movement and began exploring themes such as infinity, identity, repetition and psychological perception. Many of her works are deeply connected to her own experiences and inner world.
Kusama went through a period in which she incorporated soft, phallic forms into a variety of artworks. Perhaps the best-known example is the boat, which is also on display in the exhibition. Phallic forms can also be found in shoes, on hats and inside shopping bags. This was not an expression of an obsession with sex; rather, Kusama has spoken about her fear of sex. Many of these works therefore reflect her own experiences, fears and inner visual world.
Another section of the exhibition is devoted to the pumpkin. For Yayoi Kusama, the pumpkin is far more than a simple motif from nature.
She was fascinated by its round, irregular and distinctive shape, which to her seemed almost like a friendly, living creature. While many of her works are shaped by obsession and intense psychological experiences, her pumpkins convey something cheerful, warm and comforting, connecting her art with a sense of joy and positivity. Apparently, there were even times when she would paint a pumpkin first thing after waking up!
The characteristic polka dots with which Kusama covers her pumpkins are an important part of her artistic language. Through their constant repetition, the individual object seems to lose its boundaries and becomes part of a seemingly infinite pattern. In this way, Kusama connects the tangible, finite pumpkin with one of the central themes of her work: the idea of infinity. At the same time, the pumpkin can be understood as a kind of self-portrait, as its imperfect and unusual form represents individuality and difference. Kusama thus transforms an everyday object into a deeply personal symbol that brings together her experiences, her sense of humour and her fascination with infinity.
After this room, the exhibition moves on to works from the 1980s. Kusama began working increasingly with acrylic paint, particularly using vivid, luminous colours. She created a wide variety of patterns that resemble cells, fibres or organic structures. They echo her Infinity Net paintings from the 1950s, but are much more colourful and vibrant.
At the heart of the exhibition are Kusama’s unmistakable motifs: endless polka dots, mirrored environments, vivid colours and organic forms. Particularly fascinating are the famous Infinity Rooms, where mirrors and light create the illusion of limitless space. Visitors do not simply observe the artwork – they become part of it. This immersive quality is what makes Kusama’s work so powerful and memorable.
Two of these “rooms” are located on the ground floor. The first is a small cube that can be viewed from all sides at the same time, allowing several people to experience it simultaneously. For the second one, you have to queue. Groups of three or four people can then enter the cube for one minute or less, where they are briefly enclosed in darkness. But it is not really dark: the mirrored walls reflect tiny lights in a wide range of colours, creating the illusion of an endless, immersive space.
The best-known and largest Infinity Room, which also contains another cube that visitors can queue to enter, can be reached by taking the impressive, long escalator up to the next floor – definitely don’t miss it. The yellow-and-black tentacle-like forms that seem to be reaching out and engulfing the large room provide the grand finale and one of the exhibition’s most striking photo opportunities.
Everything is covered in yellow and black. Tentacle-like forms wind their way through the space, while the mirrors make the room appear even larger and seemingly endless. When you step inside the cube, the same motif appears again, but this time illuminated, creating an even more immersive experience.
The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe, created in 2025, was made specifically for this exhibition series. It has so far only been shown in Switzerland, Cologne and now here in Amsterdam. The entire room, from floor to ceiling, is covered in Kusama’s characteristic polka-dot pattern, including the tentacle-like forms. Surrounded by this endless repetition, the visitor gradually loses their sense of space and seems to disappear into a forest of dots and forms.
Summary
I visited the exhibition with my sister the day after it opened, and we were both absolutely fascinated. The exhibition beautifully traces the artistic path Yayoi Kusama took throughout her career, from the delicate, colourful drawings of her early years, through the rather monochromatic Infinity Nets, to her phallic works created during her time in the United States. We then move through the wild and experimental 1970s and see how she gradually developed the distinctive polka-dot style that would become one of her trademarks.
For visitors, it is particularly interesting that the exhibition brings together numerous rarely exhibited works from private collections and international museums. This creates a remarkably comprehensive picture of Kusama’s artistic development and allows us to discover lesser-known aspects of her work.
The exhibition is both art-historically significant and undeniably contemporary and fashionable – not least because of the Infinity Rooms. Kusama understood very well how to appeal to a younger audience: give people the opportunity to take selfies, and they will come! 😉
The exhibition therefore combines a classic retrospective with an intense visual experience, making it one of the most significant art events of 2026.
Text rights: © Céline Mülich, 2026
Exhibition views: © Céline Mülich, 2026
Image rights:
All images may only be used in connection with the exhibition promotion. At the end of the exhibition, this article will be displayed without the images.
1. Yayoi Kusama around the age of ten, ca. 1939. © YAYOI KUSAMA
2. Yayoi Kusama with ‚Yellow Tree / Living Room‘ at the Aichi Triennale, 2010 © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner
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