Yayoi Kusama, avant-garde artist known for immersive polka-dot installations, dies at 97

Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose infinite polka-dot universes and immersive light installations captivated global audiences for decades, died on August 14 in a Tokyo hospital at 97 years old, her company announced Thursday.

Born in 1929, Kusama became one of the defining figures of contemporary art, transforming visual hallucinations that accompanied her since childhood into a prolific career spanning painting, sculpture, performance, poetry, and film. Instantly recognizable by her vibrant red wig and polka-dot-covered clothing, she turned her inner visions into works that made her internationally celebrated as a pioneering avant-garde artist.

Her infinity rooms—walk-in installations of mirrored walls dotted with pulsing lights or floating polka dots—became her signature achievement, drawing museum crowds worldwide and inspiring countless social-media moments. The works dissolved boundaries between viewer and artwork, creating the sensation of endless space and making the ephemeral tangible.

Kusama's creative practice was unusually comprehensive for her era. She refused the conventional hierarchy that confined women artists to a single medium, working across disciplines with the intensity of obsession. Late in life, from a Tokyo psychiatric facility where she had voluntarily lived for decades, she continued creating at a rigorous pace, producing new paintings, sculptures, and conceptual works into her nineties.

"Throughout an extraordinary lifetime entirely devoted to artistic creation, Yayoi Kusama led a career celebrated worldwide as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual arts, performance, fiction and poetry," her company said in a statement. "We will continue Yayoi Kusama's will and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength to people around the world."