Connecting the Dots

The art of Yayoi Kusama has been seen by millions of people around the world, but a new exhibition at M+ in Hong Kong proves there's still more to discover about the princess of polka dots

The dizzying heights of fame that 93-year-old artist Yayoi Kusama has reached are perhaps best illustrated not by the stratospheric sums her art sells for at auction, or by the tens of millions of people who flock to her exhibitions around the world, but by the fact that her signature outfit of a red bob-cut wig and polka-dotted dress has become a popular Halloween costume. "Can you think of many other cultural figures, artists or otherwise, who are so immediately recognisable?" asks Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator at M+ in Hong Kong. "Beyoncé, I guess. I think Kusama is at that level. Seriously."

But all this attention has not left Kusama jaded. When she received a letter from curators at M+ asking if they could host a retrospective of her art-the latest in a long, long line of major museums eager to exhibit her work the elderly artist was so moved that she burst into tears.

"She's so excited to have this show," says Mika Yoshitake, an independent curator whom Chong invited to co-curate the exhibition at M+. "This show means so much to her."

The exhibition, Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, of which HSBC is the Lead Sponsor, runs from November 12 to May 14, 2023. It features more than 200 works from across Kusama's more than seven-decade-long career, sourced from museums and private collections in Asia, Europe and the US, as well as pieces from Kusama's own archive. Although the artist has been the subject of major museum exhibitions before, this one feels particularly special to her because it is being held in Asia, and in particular at M+, a new museum that is dedicated to preserving, exhibiting and re-contextualising contemporary visual culture from around the continent.