Yayoi Kusama’s largest permanent public sculpture in the world has been unveiled in London by Transport for London (TfL), British Land and City of London Corporation.
Yayoi Kusama said:
London is a massive metropolis with people of all cultures moving constantly. The spheres symbolise unique personalities while the supporting curvilinear lines allow us to imagine an underpinning social structure.
Infinite Accumulation has been unveiled at Britain’s busiest station, London Liverpool Street the artist’s first permanent public artwork in the UK and her largest ever public sculpture in the world. Infinite Accumulation reaches over 10 meters high and 12 meters wide and covers an area of approximately 100 meters in length. Its gleaming silver spheres soar above the ground and are highly polished to reflect everything around them. This dynamic, highly reflective architectural form, mirroring the viewer and the world around it, means Infinite Accumulation responds to both individual and collective experience within the changing spaces of the urban landscape of London.
Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground at TfL, said:
Infinite Accumulation is a monumental addition to public art in London and marks the first permanent installation of Yayoi Kusama’s work in the UK. With this artwork, millions will enjoy the opportunity to encounter Kusama’s dynamic and rhythmic sculpture, reflecting on the evolving city around them.
Yayoi Kusama is best known for her use of massed, repeated polka dots, which first emerged in her work in the 1960s and have become one of her signature motifs. Polka dots cover the surfaces of numerous of her paintings, sculpture, and all-encompassing multi-media installations. For Kusama dots express both the underlying unity and instability of the cosmos, as well as Earth’s often precarious place within it.
For this monumental site-specific work, Kusama has expanded the polka dot into linked forms which interact with and define the public spaces outside the new Elizabeth line entrance to Liverpool Street station. These dynamic serpentine arches were created intuitively by Kusama, hand-twisting the wires on the original models for the artwork.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said:
Commuters and visitors are in for a real treat when they arrive at Liverpool Street and are welcomed by Kusama’s Infinite Accumulation. Kusama is one of the world’s leading artists and so it is fitting that this is the final work in a brilliant series of contemporary art commissions for the Elizabeth line. The arts are a vital part of London’s success, helping transform our spaces and connect our communities as we build a better London for all.
Kusama’s work sits alongside works including Douglas Gordon’s undergroundoverheard at Tottenham Court Road station and Chantal Joffe’s A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel at Whitechapel station. It joins Manifold (Major Third) 5:4 by Conrad Shawcross, which was unveiled at the western entrance of the station at Moorgate in 2023. Infinite Accumulation?is located outside the eastern entrance of the Elizabeth line at Liverpool Street station.
Infinite Accumulation was co-funded by British Land and the City of London Corporation. It is the final artwork to be installed and commissioned by the Crossrail Art Programme for the Elizabeth line, the largest collaborative public art commissioning process in a generation.
A second public installation by Yayoi Kusama for London is presented by Serpentine and the Royal Parks in Kensington Gardens. Kusama’s Pumpkin, 2024 takes the form of a large-scale bronze sculpture and is on view this summer. The work on view in Kensington Gardens is Kusama’s tallest bronze pumpkin sculpture to date, standing at 6 metres tall and 5.5 metres in diameter. Installed prominently by the Round Pond, Pumpkin (2024) can be seen from a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives creating an intriguing dialogue with the surrounding environment of the Park.
All images: Yayoi Kusama, Infinite Accumulation, 2024, Liverpool Street station (Elizabeth line). Commissioned as part of The Crossrail Art Programme, 2017 © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro. Photo: Thierry Bal
