yayoi kusama wraps trees in polka dots ahead of exhibition at NGV

Yayoi Kusama’s major exhibition at NGV opens December 2024

Yayoi Kusama wraps more than 60 trees with her recognizable polka dots before the opening of her major exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) International in Melbourne. Named Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees, they stand in line along St Kilda Road, just in front of the NGV International.

They’re a public-art preview, already welcoming passersby walking down the street ahead of the show’s premiere on December 15th, 2024. The exhibition ‘Yayoi Kusama’ runs until April 21st, 2025, and showcases nearly 200 of her works. Visitors are afforded the artist’s iconic sculptures, including the Dancing Pumpkin and Narcissus Garden.

all photos by Tobias Titz © YAYOI KUSAMA, courtesy of NGV International, unless stated otherwise

Narcissus Garden from venice biennale appears in melbourne

It’s not the exhibition debut of Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees in front of NGV International. Yayoi Kusama first brought them to the Kirishima Open Air Museum in Japan in 2002. The difference is that they were white polka dots over red fabric in Japan, and in Melbourne, the artist has painted white dots over bright pink cloth. This design extends to the museum’s glass waterwall. When visitors step inside NGV International for the exhibition, they see a pink-and-black polka-dot design gracing the entryway of the art museum.

They keep walking forward, and they should see Yayoi Kusama’s interaction with the Narcissus Garden. It’s an installation with 1,400 reflective silver balls, each 30-centimeter in diameter, presented in the open when the visitors enter the building, past the entryway. They’re on the floor in front of the waterwall, and some of them are also in the Federaction Court of the museum, mirroring the surroundings. Just like the polk dots around trees, it’s not the first appearance of the silver balls. The artist first presented the installation, although unofficially, during the Venice Biennale in 1966. She brings them over once again just for her major exhibition in Melbourne.

Yayoi Kusama’s Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees, 2002/2024

Dancing pumpkin in bronze sculpture arrives at the exhibition

Out to the Federation Court of the NGV International, the giant bronze pumpkin sculpture that the art museum recently acquired towers over the visitors. It’s five meters tall, and three of its octopus-like tentacles are swerving and flowy, hovering above the floor to suggest that it’s jiving. It’s the Dancing Pumpkin after all, which Yayoi Kusama produced in 2020. It’s one of her largest and most ambitious pumpkins to date, so it’s only just to have it over at the NGV International for her major exhibition. There’s a room in the museum called the Great Hall, and in here, visitors find Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession, which she conceived in 1996.

The presentation is how the name sounds because large yellow and black infalatable bviny spheres with polka dots hang overhead and under Leonard French’s iconic cut glass in the hall. They look like stars in the dark sky. That’s relatable because for Yayoi Kusama, dots symbolize the individual, and they’re in great numbers like this installation, they represent the cosmos. It’s an exhibition for visitors of all ages, including children. The NGV International also hosts a children’s gallery for the show, the space where Yayoi Kusama’s The Obliteration Room is housed.

the trees wrapped in polka dots are on display along St Kilda Road, Melbourne

The Obliteration Room (2002 – present) is a large-scale interactive installation. It’s a bright white room at first, and the space asks all visitors to color it with polka dots however and wherever they want. It’s part of the reason it’s called The Obliteration Room: it’s not heavy on the negative connotation of the word, but the process of ‘fragmenting something to return it to the universe,’ as the artist describes it. That takes place then by adding bright and vibrant dots to the white furniture and room. The act affirms the artist’s familiar practice and the idea behind the room. With around 200 of her works in place, the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at NGV International is dubbed the largest ever show of the artists in Australia and one of her most comprehensive retrospectives ever presented globally.

In this show, the artist also showcases her paintings, collages, fashion pieces, and videos, all displaying her multidisciplinary practice. Her infinity rooms that use mirrors to create the illusion of infinite space are present, including a never-before-seen kaleidoscopic one. The exhibition also features the Australian premiere of The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe, 2019, with its six-meter-high tentacular forms covered in yellow-and-black polka dots. The Yayoi Kusama exhibition opens at NGV International on December 15th, 2024, and visitors can catch the show until April 21st, 2025.

Yayoi Kusama’s major exhibition at NGV International in Melbourne opens on December 15th, 2024

Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, 1966/2024, and Untitled, 2024

for Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, 1966/2024, there are 1,400 reflective silver balls on the floor

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Installation view of Yayoi Kusama’s Flower Obsession 2017 on display in NGV Triennial from December 15th, 2017 to April 15th, 2018 at NGV International Melbourne © YAYOI KUSAMA | image courtesy of NGV

Installation view of Yayoi Kusama's Dots Obsession 1996/2015 at Kusama's solo exhibition YAYOI KUSAMA: IN INFINIT Y, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark. image © YAYOI KUSAMA, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts

Yayoi Kusama, The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe, 2019, at Kusama's solo exhibition Yayoi Kusama: All About Love Speaks Forever at Fosun Foundation, Shanghai | image © YAYOI KUSAMA, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts

Installation view of Yayoi Kusama's Dancing Pumpkin 2020 at New York Botanical Garden, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner © YAYOI KUSAMA | photo by Robert Benson

Installation view of Yayoi Kusama’s Chandelier of Grief 2016/18, Tate Modern, London | image © YAYOI KUSAMA, ourtesy of Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro