Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers

This exhibition of all new work by Yayoi Kusama features new paintings, new sculptures elaborating on her signature motifs of pumpkins and flowers, and a new Infinity Mirror Room.

Spanning our spaces at 519, 525, and 533 West 19th Street in New York City, and on view from May 11 through Friday, July 21, 2023, it is one of the artist’s largest gallery exhibitions to date.

The exhibition is named after three monumental flower sculptures, each titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers. Since the 1950s, Kusama has repeatedly engaged flowers and plants as motifs in her work, inspired by her fascination with the natural world.

A sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, 2023
Stainless steel and urethane paint
98 x 111 x 106 inches (248.9 x 281.9 x 269.2 cm)
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Here, the brightly colored, fantastically scaled plants become psychedelic and monstrous, as their exaggerated features compete with the cheerful connotation of flowers.

A detail of the sculpture work titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023 (detail)
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023 (detail)
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023

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The flowers convey a duality, present throughout Kusama’s work, between life and death, celebration and mourning, figuration and abstraction, with each opposite simultaneously pushed to its limits.

A sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, 2023
Stainless steel and urethane paint
117 1/2 x 128 1/2 x 119 inches (298.4 x 326.4 x 302.3 cm)
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A sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, 2023
Stainless steel and urethane paint
136 x 134 x 117 inches (345.4 x 340.4 x 297.2 cm)
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Three massive undulating pumpkin sculptures, each titled Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, debut a new form that transfigures the organic pumpkin shapes Kusama has reimagined over several decades.

A bronze and urethane paint sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, 2023
Bronze and urethane paint
136 x 221 x 58 1/2 inches (345.4 x 561.3 x 148.6 cm)
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While pumpkins have appeared in Kusama’s work since her early art studies in Japan in the mid-1940s, the organic form gained a central importance in her work from the 1980s onwards—notably in one of her first open-air sculptures, Pumpkin (1994), on Naoshima Island in Japan.

An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

“Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since my childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living. They are humble and amusing at the same time, and I have and always will celebrate them in my art.”

—YAYOI KUSAMA

A bronze and urethane paint sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, 2023
Bronze and urethane paint
132 x 328 x 163 inches (335.3 x 833.1 x 414 cm)
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A bronze and urethane paint sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, titled Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, 2023
Bronze and urethane paint
125 x 335 x 97 inches (317.5 x 850.9 x 246.4 cm)
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Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love is one of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, an ongoing series of installations begun in 1965, and it welcomes the viewer into a seemingly infinite universe of dancing natural and artificial light. 

An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, 2023, in Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love , 2023, in Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

The work’s mirrored exterior reflects its surroundings, creating the illusion of blending into the environment, while on the inside light is filtered through colored holes to create a flickering illumination that is constantly in flux.

Installation view of the work titled Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, in the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers at David Zwirner in New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, 2023, in Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love , 2023, in Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

“When the people see their own reflection multiplied to infinity they then sense that there is no limit to man’s ability to project himself into endless space.”

—YAYOI KUSAMA

An installation by Yayoi Kusama, titled Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, 2023
Wood, stainless steel, aluminum, tile, acrylic, metal, and paint
158 3/4 x 201 1/8 x 201 1/8 inches (403.2 x 510.8 x 510.8 cm)
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The countless reflections created by the mirrors eliminate a fixed perspective and offer glimpses into parallel worlds, just like the artist’s Infinity Nets can be seen to push painting to its spatial limits.

A personal message from Yayoi Kusama on the occasion of the show:

“I’ve Sung the Mind of Kusama
Day by Day,
a Song from the Heart.
O Youth of Today,
Let Us Sing Together a Song from
the Heart of the Universe!”
Signature of Yayoi Kusama

2023

A portrait of YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, David Zwirner
Portrait of Yayoi Kusama. © YAYOI KUSAMA
Portrait of Yayoi Kusama. © YAYOI KUSAMA

Most of the thirty-six paintings in the exhibition are part of Kusama’s recent series EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE (2021–present), which are being shown by David Zwirner for the first time.

A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 35 7/8 inches (72.7 x 91 cm)
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A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
31 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches (80.3 x 65.2 cm)
Inquire
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

Conveying extraordinary vitality and passion, these compositions embody a highly personal, even confessional dimension for Kusama.

A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic and ink on canvas
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 inches (100 x 100 cm)
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A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2021.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 inches (100 x 100 cm)
Inquire
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

Vibrant, animated, and densely worked, the paintings are singular explorations of line and form, blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration.

A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
26 3/4 x 25 3/4 inches (68 x 65.4 cm)
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A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled Youth Accompanied by Both Death and Life Creeping Up Silently behind You As Art within Youth As Destiny!, dated 2021.

Yayoi Kusama

Youth Accompanied by Both Death and Life Creeping Up Silently
behind You As Art within Youth As Destiny! , 2021
Acrylic on canvas
17 7/8 x 20 7/8 inches (45.5 x 53 cm)
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An untitled painting by Yayoi Kusama, dated 2021.

Yayoi Kusama

Untitled, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 35 7/8 inches (72.7 x 91 cm)
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An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023

“My entire life has been painted here. Every day, any day. I will never cease dedicating my whole life to my love for the universe.”

—YAYOI KUSAMA

A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled Love You O My Heart I Want to Eat Cherry Blossoms I Want to Kiss the Pink Color of Blossoms SAKURA Blossoms I Will Meet with Death One Day SAKURA SAKURA SAKURA You Touch My Life and Death O Cherry Blossoms, Thank You, dated 2021.

Yayoi Kusama

Love You O My Heart I Want to Eat Cherry Blossoms I Want to Kiss
the Pink Color of Blossoms SAKURA Blossoms I Will Meet with Death
One Day SAKURA SAKURA SAKURA You Touch My Life and
Death O Cherry Blossoms, Thank You , 2021
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 35 7/8 inches (72.7 x 91 cm)
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A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 23 7/8 inches (72.7 x 60.6 cm)
Inquire
A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 23 7/8 inches (72.7 x 60.6 cm)
Inquire
A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2022.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 23 7/8 inches (72.7 x 60.6 cm)
Inquire
A painting by Yayoi Kusama, titled EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, dated 2023.

Yayoi Kusama

EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, 2022
Acrylic and ink on canvas
31 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches (80.3 x 65.2 cm)
Inquire
An installation view of the exhibition titled Yayoi Kusama, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, dated 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023
A background image for the Learn more about Yaoyi Kusama CTA featuring a detail of an oil painting by Yayoi Kusama at her show titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers

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Hero video: Installation views, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, 2023. © YAYOI KUSAMA

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