The article offers a mixed appraisal of Yayoi Kusama following her death at 97, arguing that her immersive installations can be exhilarating when experienced at scale but often feel empty in isolation. It considers her global popularity significant because her dotted pumpkins, tentacles and mirror rooms have become defining images of contemporary art’s social-media and luxury-market era.

The writer recalls initially finding Kusama’s dots static beside abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian, but later being won over by a large Manchester presentation at Aviva Studios. They argue that her work’s cheerful decorative appeal sits uneasily with her troubled life and anti-war activism, and contend that artists such as Bridget Riley offer greater visual and intellectual complexity; nevertheless, Kusama’s sensory excess is presented as an apt reflection of the present age.