‘I Live for My Art. That’s Really All There Is to It’: Read One of Yayoi Kusama’s Final Unpublished Interviews

Yayoi Kusama, who died last month, was among the world’s most famous artists, her reach extending far beyond the realm of museums and galleries, both because of the work she made and the way she saw the universe all around her.

She was most beloved for her “Infinity Mirror Rooms,” jewel-box installations that dazzle the eye, extending one’s perception and immersing the viewer in an unending abyss of pure beauty and total wonderment. She made the first one, Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field, in 1965, but these installations didn’t bring her global renown until decades later, during the 2010s. Her 2012 Tate Modern retrospective was perfectly timed, since Instagram was first becoming popular when the show opened and seemingly everyone wanted to post the mind-bending photos that are possible in an “Infinity Mirror Room.”

Almost overnight, Kusama became not just an art world star but a worldwide icon. People lined up then—and continue to do so now—just to stand in an “Infinity Room” for a few seconds at a time. A 2017 survey of her “Infinity Rooms” organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. helped to propel Kusama’s fame even further. Making stops in Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, Cleveland, and Atlanta, the exhibition showed the breadth of the series and just how much an artist can reflect her inner world back onto a viewer.

Almost as quickly, however, the “Infinity Mirror Rooms” became victims of their own fame. Curators Doryun Chong and Mika Yoshitake soon stepped in to help correct the record of the breadth of Kusama’s oeuvre with the 2022 exhibition “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now” at M+ in Hong Kong. It traced her work from her earliest “Infinity Net” paintings, which were influenced by how she saw the Pacific Ocean during her flight from Japan to the US in 1957, to her transgressive happenings in Downtown New York in the 1960s, to her fashion collaborations and later work.

All the while, the show made the case for the radicality of her concept of “self-obliteration,” which posited that to enter an infinite universe humans have “to blend in with sublime nature, to observe everything, and to realise how the self is finite, at one, and interconnected with other things. In so doing, rebirth in love and equality is possible,” as M+ assistant curator Kary Woo put it.

On the occasion of her latest traveling museum survey, the below written interview was conducted in September 2025 by representatives of the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, where the exhibition debuted (running October 2025–January 2026); the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, where it went next (March–August 2026); and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it opened to the public today. (Next spring, her gallery David Zwirner will present her final works in a solo show in New York.)

What’s been sparking your imagination lately?

Thoughts and images bubble up in my consciousness incessantly. And I am unable to refrain from depicting them.

Are there rituals, habits, or environments that help you get into a creative flow?

I live for my art. That’s really all there is to it. I make no distinction between daily life and my work.

What part of the creative process brings you the most joy or surprise?

I’ve always approached the production of artwork as a quest for truth. As an artist, I’ve endeavored to instill such qualities as dignity, vitality, and humanity in all my work. I experience joy whenever I finish a good piece.

How do you know when a piece is finished, especially considering the often infinite nature of your patterns and installations?

Such works express the philosophy I’ve adhered to, as proof of life, since I was ten years old.

Is there something you’ve always wanted people to understand about your work, but that often goes unnoticed?

I relate to all people through my art, pursuing my ideals of love and peace. For many decades “Kusama-ism,” my own art movement, has been adored by people around the world, garnering their interest and heartfelt approval.

Your work has long helped you process both global chaos and inner struggles. For young people growing up in an increasingly complex world, what role do you believe art can play in helping them cope, connect or resist?

One needs to forge a creativity-driven, highly humanistic philosophy in relation to love and peace, maintaining reverence for all life, facing global crises head-on, and sharing wonderful messages with the world to help others overcome prejudice and confusion.

Looking back, was there a particular turning point or moment of clarity that shaped your artistic direction?

At the age of five, I was drawing pictures, and by the time I was ten, I harbored a powerful desire to become a painter. Incorporating everything that sparked my interest, I went on to explore various forms of expression, including painting, sculpture, film, and literature. These transformations came about not by design but organically.

How did you navigate being an artist in a male-dominated art world, particularly early in your career?

I don’t think in terms of male versus female, but I struggled mightily in those days, painting day and night for all I was worth. Now, having cultivated a life stance of my own, and well aware that the time remaining grows ever shorter, I’m still constantly seeking something new, urgently reaching for unexplored heights in the realm of art.

If your younger self could see your work today, what do you think she would say?

The early years of my career were devoted to becoming established. I believe my younger self would be delighted to know that I went on to gain a genuine lust for life, having discovered its true beauty.

Your exhibitions reach audiences around the world. What kind of emotional or intellectual response do you hope to evoke in them?

With a full-bodied voice, I’ve sung the praises of human life and its eternal brilliance. Now, in my quest for truth, in the midst of the joyous festival called life, tucked inside the infinite expanse of space and time, with a heart filled with hope and a fervent desire for world peace, I pray that my passionate paean to humanity will encourage and inspire you all.