Pumpkin is two distinctive large sculptures that employ one of artist Yayoi Kusama's signature motifs—yellow pumpkins with black polka dots. Pumpkin has always been an important theme in Kusama’s oeuvre. She was deeply fascinated by the peculiar yet unpretentious appearance of pumpkins ever since she was a child. Each pumpkin she created is unique in its form and features, just as human beings come in all shapes and personalities.

Pumpkin (2022) was one of the three brand-new works by the artist presented in M+’s Special Exhibition Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, the largest retrospective of Kusama in Asia outside Japan.

Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Japan) is one of the most important and influential Asian artists in the history of contemporary art. She is renowned for her prolific and ground-breaking practice, spanning paintings, sculptures, performances, moving images, and large-scale installations. Trained in traditional Japanese painting, she moved to the United States in 1957 and soon established herself in the American and European avant-garde for her unique and radical artistic language. She returned to Japan in 1973 and has relentlessly reinvented and created art that resonates with the time in which she lives.