yayoi kusama's infinite accumulation lands in london as soaring silver spheres

Infinite Accumulation by Yayoi Kusama lands in london

Yayoi Kusama lands in London with a monumental site-specific installation dubbed Infinite Accumulation. The Japanese artist is best known for her use of massed, repeated polka dots which first emerged in her work in the 1960s and have become one of her signature motifs. Polka dots cover the surfaces of several of her paintings, sculpture, and all-encompassing multi-media installations. For Kusama, dots express both the underlying unity and instability of the cosmos, as well as Earth’s often precarious place within it. This latest sculpture expands the polka dot into linked forms which interact with and define the public spaces outside the new Elizabeth line entrance to Liverpool Street station

Yayoi Kusama, Infinite Accumulation, 2024 Liverpool Street station (Elizabeth line) | commissioned as part of The Crossrail Art Programme, 2017 © YAYOI KUSAMA | Courtesy Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro | image © Thierry Bal

a serpentine installation that reimagines the artist’s polka dots

These dynamic serpentine arches were created intuitively by the artist, hand-twisting the wires on the original models for the artwork. Infinite Accumulation reaches over 10 meters heigh and 12 meters wide, spanning approximately 100 meters in length. Its gleaming silver spheres, evoking Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots, soar above the ground and are highly polished to reflect everything around them. This dynamic, highly reflective architectural form, mirroring the viewer and the world around it, means Infinite Accumulation responds to both individual and collective experience within the changing spaces of the urban landscape of London.

The monumental silver sculpture by Yayoi Kusama was co-funded by the British Land and the City of London Corporation It is the final artwork to be installed and commissioned by the Crossrail Art Programme, developed as part of the local platform Art on the Underground. Today, it is considered the largest collaborative public art commissioning process to unfold in a generation. The sculpture is now permanently placed at the entrance of the Liverpool Street station.