Yayoi Kusama's First German Retrospective at Gropius Bau

The Gropius Bau in Berlin is hosting the first retrospective in Germany dedicated to 92-year-old Yayoi Kusama, featuring over 300 works spanning eighty years. The exhibition, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, includes a new installation titled "A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe" with pink inflatable tentacles dotted with black polka dots. It covers Kusama's early abstract gouaches, her iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms (including a new one), fashion, documents, and reconstructions of performances and installations from 1952 to 1983. Unpublished materials from her Tokyo archive are also displayed. The show traces her career from her time in New York (1958-1978), where she participated in protest movements and wrote to President Nixon about the Vietnam War, to her return to Japan and voluntary admission to Seiwa Hospital for the mentally ill in 1977. Highlights include her 1963 "One Thousand Boats Show," the 1965 "Floor Show – Phalli's Field" (her first Infinity Mirror Room), and the 1966 "Narcissus Garden" at the Venice Biennale, funded by Lucio Fontana. Kusama represented Japan at the 1993 Venice Biennale with a solo show. The exhibition runs until August 15, 2021.