When it comes to painting spots before the eyes influential Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was decades ahead of Damien Hirst, putting her dotty pattern on paintings, colourful sculptures of pumpkins, dogs and flowers, walk-through installations and even on live people. This major survey of the influential octogenarian artist covers all the major periods of her work beginning with her first surrealist-influenced paintings made in Japan in the late 1950s and with a particular focus on her career in New York in the 1960s, where she hung out with all the major players and was as avant-garde (and more political) than Warhol – orchestrating a band of hippy-artist followers in naked anti-war orgies, actions and performances. A particular highlight will be a new large-scale mirrored infinity room where visitors will be surrounded by reflected kaleidoscopic repetitions of light and colour.
