KUSAMA'S COSMOS

M+ celebrates its first anniversary with a monumental scholarly showcase on the Japanese artist. Co-curators DORYUN CHONG and MIKA YOSHITAKE take Prestige behind the scenes.

-  NATASHA LI

Polka dots. These two words, spoken or written, once registered, instantly flood the brain with images of the distinctive pattern. Once acknowledged, it's impossible to stop the round circles scattered against a homogenous background from filling up the blank screen of the conscious mind.

Few motifs carry as much cultural significance as the polka dot, which developed in Europe in the 1840s to '60s, and whose etymology derives from polka music. It later swept early 20th-century US, appearing on everything from garments and bedsheets to homeware. Minnie Mouse first donned her signature polka-dot dress in 1928, while Frank Sinatra serenaded the world with Polka Dots and Moonbeams.

This globally recognisable pattern has also been transformed by one artist into a language through which she communicates her ethos with the world. Indeed, her signature style is so familiar, the name Yayoi Kusama - prolific Japanese contemporary visionary, is invariably flashing in your mind.

Her sculptural or on-canvas pumpkins, infinity net paintings, and not to mention notoriously photogenic mirror rooms, are so representative of contemporary art that a quick Google search of the two words results in two Kusama pieces in the top six images. One of them features the artist, with her famous red bob and wearing a yellow and black polka dot dress that matches her pumpkin installation in the background.

Given her fame, it is no surprise that Hong Kong's M+, Asia's first global museum on contemporary visual culture, has taken up the challenge of organising an extensive retrospective of Kusama's work. Her influence and prominence, which are matched only by Warhol and Rothko's, has already been thoroughly studied by the art institution. In celebration of its first birthday last November, the show was launched then and will run until May 14 this year.