Yayoi Kusama, 1929–2026

Yayoi Kusama changed art by making infinity something audiences could enter.

Her first Infinity Mirror Room, Phalli’s Field, appeared in 1965. Mirrors multiplied repeated forms across the surrounding space, extending ideas first developed through her Infinity Net paintings and Accumulation sculptures into a physical encounter. The viewer was no longer positioned outside the artwork, but absorbed within it.

That shift has had an enduring influence on installation art and the wider movement towards spatial and experiential practice. Kusama demonstrated how repetition, reflection, light and participation could alter a viewer’s perception of both space and self. She also showed generations of artists that experiences rooted in an intensely personal inner world could become universally legible.

This playful film was created for the 2023 Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama campaign. It features a photorealistic 3D avatar of the artist tending an animated garden of dotted flowers. Although digitally constructed, its colour and gentle humour capture something essential about Kusama’s ability to turn fear, obsession and self-obliteration into wonder.

Yayoi Kusama died in Tokyo on 14 August 2026, aged 97. The worlds she opened for artists and audiences remain infinite.