Yayoi Kusama Retrospective Opens at Fondation Beyeler
The exhibition spans the artist’s career, from iconic installations to intimate watercolors and collages.
Summary
- Fondation Beyeler hosts Switzerland’s first major Yayoi Kusama retrospective, showcasing over 300 works
- Highlights include Infinity “Mirrored Room – Illusion Inside the Heart,” “Narcissus Garden” and immersive polka‑dot tentacle installations
- The show will run until January 25, 2026
The Fondation Beyeler in Basel is hosting Switzerland’s first major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama. The show presents a vast vision of the artist’s prolific output, featuring approximately 300 works that span her entire career, presenting both iconic installations and previously unseen pieces that highlight her lifelong exploration of infinity, repetition and the interplay between art and life.
Among the standout works is “Infinity Mirrored Room – Illusion Inside the Heart” (2025), a mirrored cube installed in the museum’s garden that immerses visitors in Kusama’s signature kaleidoscopic environment. Nearby, “Narcissus Garden” – originally staged guerrilla-style at the Venice Biennale in 1966 – returns with hundreds of reflective silver balls floating across the museum’s pond, creating a meditative spectacle. The show also includes “The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe” (2019/2024), a fully immersive installation of giant inflated tentacles, emphasizing Kusama’s fascination with scale, repetition and cosmic immersion.
Adding depth to the retrospective are 130 previously unseen works, including delicate watercolors, etchings and collages created during her early years in Japan. These intimate pieces, such as her 1972 “Self Portrait” featuring butterflies and botanical motifs, reveal a quieter side of her practice and underscore her resourcefulness in working with inexpensive materials like shikishi calligraphy paper.
Alongside these, visitors encounter recurring motifs such as her “Infinity Net” paintings, performance documentation from her New York years, and fashion experiments like a macaroni-decorated gold shift dress. Together, the retrospective captures Kusama’s relentless creativity and her enduring quest to merge art with life.
The Yayoi Kusama retrospective is currently open at Fondation Beyeler and will run until January 25, 2026. Visit the museum’s official website for details on opening hours and ticket sales.
Fondation Beyeler
Baselstrasse 101
CH-4125 Riehen/Basel
Switzerland
