Next April, New York will get one last glimpse into the elusive mind of Yayoi Kusama.
David Zwirner announced today an exhibition of work from the final decade of Kusama’s life at one of its Chelsea spaces—a period the dealer described to The New York Times as “arguably […] the most extraordinary and successful decade of her career.”
Kusama died on August 14 in Tokyo at age 97, leaving behind an iconic oeuvre of abstractions and an art world remade by the rise of her global brand. At the time of her death, she was the most expensive contemporary female artist and, in 2023, the best-selling artist, generating $80.9 million at auction.
That same year, Kusama struck a partnership deal with Louis Vuitton, which borrowed her designs for a $150,000 bag and a $50,000 surfboard. To mark the occasion, the brand installed an animatronic version of Kusama in its New York store and a towering bust of the artist in its Paris flagship. Kusama herself, wheelchair-bound and wearing her signature tomato-red wig, appeared in a 2023 promotional photo beside the monumental likeness.
A notoriously private figure, Kusama made her last public appearance in 2017 at her namesake museum in Tokyo. By 2019, according to The Times, she had stopped receiving visitors at the psychiatric hospital where she spent nearly four decades of her life. All the while, her studio, run by an intimate team of assistants, maintained a prolific output of paintings and sculptures, including a large pumpkin sculpture that appeared at the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Tokyo in 2024.
“The last time Kusama visited New York, a city where she lived for many years, was in 2013. During that visit, she opened the first of many exhibitions in our galleries that had an hour-long lines for the chance to experience her work,” David Zwirner said in a statement following her death. He added that, “At the time of her passing, Kusama was, without a doubt, the most famous living artist in the world.”
Correction, September 2, 2026: An earlier version of this article misstated which New York location the Kusama exhibition will appear at. It will be in Chelsea, not Tribeca.
