Artnet News profiles seven key works by Yayoi Kusama, tracing her career from the 1960s to the present. The article highlights her iconic pieces such as *Narcissus Garden* (1966), a guerrilla installation at the Venice Biennale where she sold mirrored spheres, and *Death of a Nerve* (1976), a soft sculpture reflecting her emotional struggles after returning to Japan. It also notes her early life, including her traumatic childhood, move to New York, and friendships with artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Joseph Cornell.
This article matters because Kusama remains one of the most influential and commercially successful living artists, ranking third in Artnet's 2025 Intelligence Report for most-searched artists and second among the most bankable postwar artists. As she approaches her 100th birthday, the retrospective underscores her enduring impact on contemporary art, from avant-garde performance to market dominance, and highlights her unique ability to blend personal trauma with universal themes of infinity and obsession.