28/09/2026
YAYOI KUSAMA (1929-2026)
We don't want to just recommend arts exhibitions in the Netherlands related to womanhood and female artists, we want to suggest the questions that made us think "Yes, I want to recommend this exhibition to like-minded people".
The main question that pushed me to recommend this exhibition is "Why a feminist should visit the Yayoi Kusama exhibition?" The simple answer is yes, because she has long been the ONLY woman in the room. When she ascended to artistic fame, she had spent already years being the exception. Her history with the Stedelijk Museum makes this even clearer: when she first exhibited there in 1962, she was the sole female artist included in a historic, male-dominated avant-garde exhibition. Decades later, her massive retrospective virtually closes a circle.
For anyone passionate about art history and feminism, Kusama's work is a masterclass in radical defiance. Her legacy goes beyond her personal success, to become political.
In the 1960s, male peers like Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg took heavy inspiration from her work long before she received mainstream credit. This show restores her rightful place at the forefront of the movement.
She also subverted the male power represented by the phallus, Kusama conquered her sexual phobias by sewing thousands of fabric ph***ic shapes onto everyday domestic objects. Where male power seems overwhelming, a female shoe, or her own figure, makes Kusama a destructive force against patriarchal rules.
Her repetitive patterns and shapes dissolve the ego while, at the same time, fiercely assert a woman's presence in a world that tried to erase her.
This exhibition is also (by chance) a posthumous homage to Yayoi Kusama, who passed in August this year after seven decades in the art scene, and - consequently - the last exhibition that she personally was involved into.
What else should I add to convince you to visit this exhibition? You have time until January 17, 2027. And what shall I say to dissuade you? IT'S OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE! If you have a museumkaart you pay a 10 euro toeslag, but full ticket is 32€! We need museums to be more accessible! stop gatekeeping art!
