Singapore Feb 2025

I recently learned that Yayoi Kusama has a museum in Shinjuku. I definitely wanted to experience her museum, and so I booked advance tickets to visit.

After landing at Haneda, I took the Airport Limousine bus to Shinjuku. Once there, I stored my larger backpack in a locker and wandered out looking for lunch. I soon chanced upon a kaiten sushi restaurant where I had a good lunch before hopping onto the Toei Oedo line to get to the museum.

The Yayoi Kusama Museum is a small, five storey exhibition space. Photography is forbidden on the first three floors, unfortunately. These three floors featured paintings and soft, phallic figures from her themed collection "I would overcome death and go on living". From the exhibit, I learned that Kusama has struggled with mental health and suicidal ideation for decades. Her recent artwork focuses on her concept of "self-obliteration" (where boundaries between self and motifs from her hallucinations get blurred), while also addressing the beauty of life in light of her mortality. I also learned that she views polka dots - which is what I primarily knew her for - as pieces of an infinite universe.

In addition to the artwork, the second floor featured a collage of newpaper articles from which I learned that Kusama lived in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, and she staged anti-war protests there by painting polka dots on naked protestors.

Photography was allowed on the fourth and fifth floors. The fourth floor featured a video called "Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict". The short video has Kusama singing a song while her artwork is projected behind her. The colorful pieces - many of which were featured on the first three levels - is also reflected onto mirrors flanking the screen. Recording the video is not allowed, so I snapped lots of still images which are shown here.

The fifth floor featured one of Kuasama's famous polka dot pumpkins.Read more