Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecure, Japan.
Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.

1948
Enter senior class at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts

1969
Happening to launch artist Luois Abolafia’s campaign for Mayor of New York, Central Park, New York, USA
Opens fashion boutique, New York, USA
Happening, Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead, the MoMA, New York, USA

1971
Kusama’s Self-obliteration featured at the first annual « New York Erotic Film Festival »

1973
Returns to live in Japan

1983
Received Tenth Literary Award for New Writers, Yasei Jidai, Kadokawa Shoten, Tpkyo, Japan

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York, USA

2005
Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France

2000
Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdom

1999
« Yayoi Kusama : Beyond my Illusion »
Media of Modern Art Contemporary Gallery, Fukyoka, Japan
« In Full Bloom : Yayoi Kusama, Years in Japan ». Exhibited in conjonction with « Love Forever : Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968 ».
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan.

1998
« The Mattress Factory », Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
« Love Forever : Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968 »
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, toured to The MoMA, New York ; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis ; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
« Yayoi Kusama Has Occupied Time », Komagane Kogen Art Museum, Nagano, Japan
« Yayoi Kusama 1967-1970 : Cage Painting Women », Media of Modern Art, Contemporary Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan
« Yayoi Kusama : Now », Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA

1997
Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan

1996
« Yayoi Kusama : the 1950s and 1960s – Paintings, Sculptures and Works on paper », Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA

1995
« Yayoi Kusama : I Who Committed Suicide », Ota Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan

1994
« Yayoi Kusama : My Solitary Way to Death »
Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Shinano Art Museum, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

1992
« Yayoi Kusama : Bursting Galaxies »
Sogetsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, toured toured to Niigata City Art Museum, Japan

1989
« Yayoi Kusama : A Retrospective », Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York, USA

1988
« Yayoi Kusama : Soul Burning Flashes, Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1987
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan

1986
Musée Municipal, Dole, France, toured to Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais, France
« Infinity∞ Explosion », Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1983
« Yayoi Kusama : 1950-1970 », Galerie Hornis, The Hague, Netherlands
Jadrin de Luseine, Tokyo, Japan

1982
Fuji Television Gallery

1981
« My Manifesto for 1981 », Sendai Civic Gallery, Sendai

1977
‘Obsessional Art : A Requiem for Death and Life’, Osaka Formes Gallery, Japan

1975
« Message of Death from Hades », Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1968
Galerie Mickery, Loenersloot, Netherlands

1967
« Love Room », Galerij Orez, The Hague, Netherlands

1966
« Driving Image Show », Galleria d’Arte del Naviglio 2, Milano, Italy
« Kusama’s peep Show : Endless Love Show », Castellane Gallery, New York
« Driving Image Show », Galerie M-E Thelen, Essen, Germany

1965
International Galerij Orez, The Hague, Netherlands
« Floor Show », Castellane Gallery, New York, USA

1964
« Driving Image Show », Castellane Gallery, New York
« Aggregation : One Thousand Boats Show », Gertrude Stein Gallery, New York, USA

1961
« Yayoi Kusama : Paintings », Stephenradich Gallery, New York, USA
« Recent Paintings by Yayoi Kusama », Nova Gallery, Boston, Usa

1959
Brata Gallery, New York, USA

1955
Takemiya Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1954
Shirokiya Department Store, Tokyo, Japan

1952
« New Works by Yayoi Kusama : The Second Solo Exhibition », First Community Centre, Matsumoto, Japan

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2000
Sydney Biennale

1999
« Organic », Palais des Arts, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Musée de l’histoire de la médecine, Toulouse, France

1998
« Out of Actions : Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1976 », Museum of Contemporaary Art, Los Angeles, UA, toured to MAK, Museum of Applied, Vienna, Austria ; Museu d’Arte Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain ; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan ; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

1997
« Floating Images of Woman in Art History », Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Art, Japan
« All the Room’s a Stage », The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
« De-Genderism », Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1996
« L’informe, mode d’emploi », Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
« Art of the Postwar 1960s Avant-Garde », Kurashiki City Art Museum, Okayama, Japan
« Inside the Visible : An Elliptical Traverse of Twentieth Century Art », Institue of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA

1995
« Revolution : Art of the Sixties from Warhol to Beuys », Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan

« Division of Labor : Women’s Work in Contemporay Art », Bronx Museum of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA

1994
« When the Body Becomes Art », Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
‘Japanese Art after 1945 : Scream Against the Sky », Yokohama Museum of Art, toured to the S. Guggenheim Museum, Soho, New York , USA ; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA

1993
Japanese Pavilion, XVL Venice Biennale

1989
‘The Junk Aesthetic : Assemblage of the 1950s and early 1960s », Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Centre, New York, USA

1988
‘Gruppe Zero’, Galerie Schoeller, Düsseldorf, Germany

1986
‘Japon des Avant-Garde, 1910-1970’, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges-Pompidou, France

1985
‘Reconstructions : Avant-Garde in Japan, 1945-1965’, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, toured to Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

1984
‘Blam : The Explosion of Pop Minimalism and Performance, 1958-1964, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

1983
‘Trends of Japanese Art in the 1960s II- Towards Diversity’, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan

1981
‘Two Decades of Contemporary Japanese Art’, Kodosha Gallery, Ichinoseki, Japan

1980
‘International Moderns from the Permanent Collection, Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia, CA, USA

1979
‘Weich und Plastische (Soft Art)’, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland

1978
‘Design and Art of Modern Chairs’, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

1977
‘Improbable Furniture’, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, toured to La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, CA, Museum of Contemporay Art, Chicago, USA

1970
‘Zero-Unexecuted’, Institute of the History of Arts, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

1968
‘’Three Blind Mice’, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, toured to Aint Piecterbdij, Ghent, Belgium

1967
‘Objecten : Made in USA’, Galerie Delta, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

1966
‘Zero op Zee’, Internationale Galerij Orez
XXXIII Venice Biennale

1965
‘Aktuell 65’, Galerie Aktuelle, Bern, Switzerland
‘Nul negentienhonderd viff en zestig’, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam ? Netherlands

1964
‘The New Art’, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Connecticut, USA

1963
‘New York : Part I’, Green Gallery, New York, USA

1962
‘Accrochage 1962’, Galerie A., Amsterdam, Netherlands
‘Tentoonstelling Nul’, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
‘Nieuwe Tendezen’, State University Gallery, Leiden, Germany
‘Anno 62’, Galerie’t Venster, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1961
‘International Malerei 1960-1961’, Galerie 69, Aschaffenburg, Germany

1960
‘Brata Gallery’, New York, toured to Gallery One, Baltimore, USA
‘Monochrom Malerei’, Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany

1959
International Watercolor Exhibition : Twentieth Biennale’, Brooklin Museum, New York, USA

1958
‘Modern Japanese Paintings ‘, Brata Gallery, New York, USA

1955
‘International Watercolor Exhibition : Eighteenth Biennal’, Brooklin Museum, New York, USA