The New York Botanical Garden Announces Updates for 2020 Exhibition
KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature, Including Opening Date of May 9
Tickets for the first-ever comprehensive exploration of the artist’s lifelong engagement with nature go on sale January 29, 2020, at nybg.org/kusama
The New York Botanical Garden is the only venue for this exhibition that will include Garden-wide immersive experiences and debut new works by Yayoi Kusama
On view May 9‒November 1, 2020
Kusama with Pumpkin, 2010 ©YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore / Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London; David Zwirner, New York
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) today announced that KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature, its major 2020 exhibition of work by internationally celebrated Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929), will open on May 9, 2020. Tickets for the landmark presentation will go on sale January 29, 2020, at nybg.org/kusama.
NYBG is the sole venue for KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature. The exhibition will include works from throughout her career and multifaceted practice, and debut new works created by the artist such as the monumental Dancing Pumpkin (2020).
Kusama’s profound engagement with nature will be represented in depth, with multiple installations, including her signature mirrored environments and organic forms, colossal polkadotted sculptures of flora, mesmerizing paintings, and her first-ever participatory greenhouse installation. Sketchbooks from her youth portend Kusama’s lifelong fascination with the natural world that has inspired her aesthetic throughout her prolific career. On view through November 1, 2020, opportunities to experience her work throughout the changing seasons from spring into fall will entice return visits.
Carrie Rebora Barratt, Ph.D., CEO & The William C. Steere Sr. President of The New York Botanical Garden, said, “The Garden is uniquely suited to present this once-in-a-lifetime display of Yayoi Kusama’s work for our visitors. An exceptional selection of work invites visitors into her universe, to consider her practice through her unique vision of the natural world. Our subtitle, Cosmic Nature, references her bold investigations of materiality, media, color, form, and pattern that proliferate into an expansive sense of becoming with the cosmos. We are thrilled to mount this focused survey of the work of one of the most influential artists of our time.”
The exhibition will be installed across the Garden’s 250 acres and in several of its historic buildings. Outdoor works will include large-scale sculptures. The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory will display a spectacular horticultural tribute to Kusama based on one of her vibrant paintings. The LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building will feature immersive experiences as well as examples of her earlier work—botanical sketches, paintings, works on paper, biomorphic collages, assemblages—and recent soft sculpture and canvas works. Many of these will be on view for the first time in the U.S.
Visit nybg.org/kusama to sign up for updates and alerts on the exhibition and related public programming. Tickets go on sale for NYBG Patrons and Members on January 15, 2020.
KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature is presented by:
Major Sponsor
MetLife Foundation
Major Support provided by
LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust
Additional support provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature
Exhibitions in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory are made possible by the Estate of Enid A. Haupt.
Exhibitions in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library are made possible by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.
Additional support for Mertz Library exhibitions has also been provided by The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation and by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
