Leftover Snow in the Dream, 1982, Yayoi Kusama, at the entrance to the exhibition.
This autumn, art lovers have every reason to visit Basel beyond the bustle of the city’s famous Art Basel fair. The Fondation Beyeler is presenting the first major retrospective in Switzerland dedicated to Yayoi Kusama — a sweeping exhibition that brings together more than 300 works by the 96-year-old Japanese artist. The show spans her entire career, from rarely seen early pieces—many of which have never before been shown in Europe, including mirror rooms and a selection of her most recent paintings.
On the evening of the opening, it came as little surprise that Kusama’s grand retrospective drew large crowds within the very first hours.
Approaching the museum, designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano, one cannot help but admire how harmoniously the building is nestled into the surrounding park and landscape. The pond adjacent to the museum offers the perfect setting for one of the most striking presentations of Narcissus Garden we have encountered to date. This iconic installation—first presented unofficially for the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966—unfolds its poetic allure whether viewed from the park or from within the museum’s glass-walled galleries that overlook the water.
To the left of the entrance, visitors are greeted by Leftover Snow in the Dream (1982), a large-scale sculpture composed of fourteen white boxes, open to the front and stacked in two geometric rows. From within these boxes, coiling organic forms seem to press outward, as though attempting to break free from the strict right-angled order that contains them.
The first gallery introduces Kusama’s earliest works, some of which date back to her childhood. From about the age of ten, the artist began to experience vivid hallucinations—a condition she has long described as both torment and source of inspiration. These visions found expression early on in her drawings. Among them is a pencil sketch, Untitled (Portrait of a Young Mother, 1939), from Kusama’s own private collection. The introspective image depicts a young woman with her head gently bowed and eyes closed, her face and hair veiled by dots that continue across her garment and into the darkly shaded background. Even in this youthful work, the seeds of Kusama’s lifelong obsession with repetition and obliteration are unmistakably present.
Naturally, one of Kusama’s most emblematic motifs—alongside her signature polka dots—could not be absent from this retrospective. In the largest gallery space, visitors encounter a monumental Pumpkin sculpture, accompanied by a grouping of smaller sculptures and a selection of her celebrated Pumpkin paintings. This motif, too, traces its origins to Kusama’s childhood in rural Japan. In her autobiography, she recalls a walk through the fields with her grandfather, during which she came upon a pumpkin as large as a human head—an encounter that instantly captivated her imagination and left a lasting imprint on her artistic vision.
"It seems that pumpkins do not inspire much respect. But I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form. What appealed to me most was the pumpkin's generous unpretentiousness. That and its solid spiritual balance."
(Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Tate Publishing, 2011)
The Infinity Mirror Room installation in the museum’s lower level quickly became one of the exhibition’s main attractions, drawing long queues on the very first evening. And indeed, the wait is well worth it — even if, as is often the case, visitors are granted only a brief time slot to experience Kusama’s mesmerizing world of infinite self-reflection. The installation consists of a cube, mirrored both inside and out, housed within a spacious gallery. The surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling are entirely covered in Kusama’s signature polka dots, while enormous biomorphic forms snake their way across the room — an exhilarating invitation to delve deeper into the artist’s boundless universe.
Spanning seven decades of Kusama’s creative output, the retrospective also features a selection of works from her celebrated series My Eternal Soul (2009–2021), drawn from the artist’s private collection. These vividly colored, square canvases radiate an exuberant energy — a torrent of ideas, shapes, and emotions — bearing witness to the indomitable force of Yayoi Kusama’s artistic vision.
The exhibition has been organized by the Fondation Beyeler in collaboration with the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It will remain on view in Basel through 26 January 2026, before traveling first to Cologne in March and subsequently to Amsterdam in September 2026.
Visitor Information
Fondation Beyeler
Baselstrasse 101, CH-4125 Riehen/Basel
Switzerland
Opening Hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 9:00 – 18:00
Wednesday: 9:00 – 20:00
