Posthumous Yayoi Kusama Exhibition Opens at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam launches a major retrospective of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama on September 11, running through later this month. Curated by 62-year-old Leontine Coelewij, the show was re-framed as a tribute after Kusama’s death in August at age 97. The exhibition occupies several rooms and culminates in an “Infinity Mirrored Room” installation designed specifically for this venue.

The Straits Times

Kusama’s career spanned seven decades, encompassing avant-garde work in New York during the late 1950s and a return to Japan in the 1970s where she lived and created in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital. She maintained long-standing ties to the Netherlands, participating in the ZERO movement’s 1965 landmark show at the Stedelijk and staging a 1967 “happening” that covered Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven in painted dots. Her signature polka-dot motifs originated from early-life hallucinations and have been interpreted as visual expressions of her mental-health struggles.

The Straits Times

• More than 300 works are on view, including ceramics, etchings, drawings, and her iconic pumpkin sculptures.

The Straits Times

• Approximately 50 pieces have never been displayed before, sourced from museums in Tokyo and Kusama’s hometown of Matsumoto.

The Straits Times

• The centerpiece is a black-walled infinity room covered in yellow polka dots, surrounded by mirrors that create a “never-ending” visual field.

Naharnet

• Additional installations feature yellow tentacles and a large fiber-reinforced plastic pumpkin, echoing the artist’s recurring motifs of repetition and infinity.

Naharnet

Coelewij explained that the exhibition was intended to let visitors “step into her mind,” emphasizing the therapeutic role art played for Kusama throughout her life. She described the Dutch environment as “open, tolerant, liberal,” noting that Kusama felt at home in Amsterdam’s counter-cultural scene. The curator also said the team chose not to alter the show’s composition, asserting that it reflects how Kusama herself would have wanted the presentation.

Naharnet

• “So a lot of her work comes from these mental issues that she had,” — Leontine Coelewij

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• “She really liked the whole atmosphere in the Netherlands, which was rather open and tolerant, liberal,” — Leontine Coelewij

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• “There's a lot of mirrors, there's tentacles, there's a lot of color, and it's a ... you can say hallucinating world. You really step into her mind,” — Leontine Coelewij

Naharnet

• “I think the show will be a highlight for people who do not know the work of Kusama, but also people who’ve seen her work on several occasions,” — Leontine Coelewij

The Straits Times

• “What I think is very characteristic of Kusama is that, for her, making art and drawing what went on in her mind was a way to deal with the difficult issues she had,” — Leontine Coelewij

The Straits Times

• “This is how she wanted the show to be,” — Coelewij. But Coelewij

The Straits Times