Yayoi Kusama’s “Trajectory” and “Miracle” — W Collection & More 1951–2005

Years ago, I saw a Kusama exhibition too—but what I remember most is a video of chrysanthemums covering a body, and my own confusion.

This time, the span of work is genuinely stunning: 50 years. Starting from her early pieces, and realizing she’s 96 this year.

Following the threads of dots and nets, her life moves from Japan to the U.S., and back to Japan again. What stayed with me is an artist’s choice to love life: choosing to look straight at the hallucinations that caused her pain, and finding a way to live alongside them. And then the steadiness—continuing to cultivate her practice, continuing to produce work, even when society turned away from her, and even after moving into a psychiatric hospital, still creating small-scale pieces within the limits of her environment.

This exhibition felt like a New Year’s gift.