The Japanese artist's Instagram-friendly museum finally opened its doors this month

After much anticipation, Yayoi Kusama, one of Japan's renowned avant-garde artists, finally opened the doors to her new museum in October 2017 with tickets already sold out for the year. Located within the bustling downtown district of Shinjuku in Tokyo, the Yayoi Kusama Museum celebrates Kusama's works and her unique and impactful contribution to art history.

See also: Yayoi Kusama's Fashion, Design Work to Get Focus in New Retrospective

Designed by architecture firm Kume Sekkei, the Yayoi Kusama Museum is a striking yet minimalistic building that stands out in the sea of the ordinary architectures that surround it. Besides showcasing Kusama's works to celebrate her legendary career, the Kusama Museum has created an ambitious set of goals that includes providing education to visitors on contemporary art.

'Creation is a Solitary Pursuit, Love is What Brings You Closer to Art', the museum's first show curated by Yuji Maeyama, is the embodiment of the beliefs that dominate Kusama’s works. Throughout Kusama's career, she uses her works to demonstrate that art requires engagement, observation and proactiveness on a societal level in order to achieve universal appreciation.

The first exhibition of the museum includes recent installation work that was specifically made for the museum's opening, sculptural works which include a new iconic pumpkin sculpture, and over sixteen paintings from the 'My Eternal Soul' and 'Love Forever' series. The selection includes a painting of a large accumulation of various sized eyes which seem to look out at the viewer, as well as the infamous dot painted patterns that reflect Kusama's hallucination. 

In recent years, Kusama has found ways to make her works accessible to an even larger group of audiences. She collaborated with Louis Vuitton in 2012 on store front installations, product design, and more. The Infinity Mirror Room installations have become a magical site for marriage proposals across the world. 

Kusama has a long history of creating visually provocative works spanning across mediums of painting, performance, film, sculpture and installation. Throughout the years, her works have been exhibited across the globe, giving the global art audience the opportunity to engage with her realm of hallucination in which reality and illusion merge.

For more information, visit yayoikusamamuseum.jp

The story originally appeared on The Artling. Visit for the latest art and design news, and keep up to date on Asia's best galleries and artists.

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