Badass Yayoi Kusama at Foundation Beyeler
Beatrice Lessi
You’ve seen her in giant form at a Louis Vuitton shop, or maybe you’ve seen George Clooney covered in dots. Whom am I talking about? Yayoi Kusama. For 30 francs, I had one of the most inspiring days of the year. A friend called me in the morning, and just two hours later I was on the train to Basel, heading to Foundation Beyeler.
Foundation Beyeler is my favorite spot in Switzerland—I try to visit once a year. It’s small, intimate, and its architecture alone is worth the trip, even if there were no art inside. But there always is, and it’s always good. This time, though, it was iconic. Kusama herself came to open the exhibition, at an age that makes her story even more extraordinary. Walking through the rooms, you see her journey: starting in her 20s, already outrageous and innovative in the 1950s, then becoming bolder and cleverer in her 70s and 80s, and now still pushing boundaries.
Yayoi Kusama’s life is a testament to persistence and imagination. Born in Japan in 1929, she began painting obsessively as a child, often inspired by hallucinations of endless dots and nets. In the late 1950s she moved to New York, where she quickly became part of the avant-garde scene, staging radical performances and installations that challenged conventions. Her polka dots and mirrored rooms became her signature, transforming spaces into infinite universes. Despite struggles with mental health, she never stopped creating, and her art only grew more daring with age.
Today, Kusama is celebrated worldwide as one of the most influential contemporary artists. Her work bridges fashion, pop culture, and fine art, while always staying true to her vision of repetition, infinity, and the beauty of the surreal. Seeing her pieces at Foundation Beyeler reminded me that creativity doesn’t fade—it evolves. And if Kusama can keep reinventing herself well into her 90s, then maybe we all have more boldness left in us than we think.
What a day. What an artist. And what a reminder that 30 francs can buy not just a ticket, but a spark of inspiration that stays with you long after the train ride home.
