Yayoi Kusama Unveils First Permanent Public UK Sculpture

A new sculpture by Yayoi Kusama was unveiled at the entrance of London’s busiest subway station. The artwork is the Japanese artist’s first permanent public artwork in the UK and currently the largest public sculpture by Kusama in the world.

Infinite Accumulation (2024) is a site-specific work of linked, reflective silver spheres more than 32 feet high, 39 feet wide and more than 328 feet in length. On August 7, the sinewy, shiny artwork was unveiled at Liverpool station by Transport for London, the real estate investment trust company British Land and the City of London Corporation.

“London is a massive metropolis with people of all cultures moving constantly. The spheres symbolize unique personalities while the supporting curvilinear lines allow us to imagine an underpinning social structure,” Kusama said in a press release.

Infinite Accumulation was commissioned in 2017 as part of The Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art program. The highly-polished, reflective mirrored surfaces are also similar to Kusama’s immersive installation Narcissus Garden.

Infinite Accumulation was co-funded by British Land and the City of London Corporation. The Kusama sculpture is the final artwork to be installed and commissioned by the Crossrail Art Programme for the Elizabeth line, the east-west railway in London which opened in May 2022.

Other artworks that were commissioned and installed were Douglas Gordon’s looped video undergroundoverheard at Tottenham Court Road station, Chantal Joffe’s paper collage and aluminum work A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel at Whitechapel station, and the large bronze sculpture Manifold (Major Third) 5:4 by Conrad Shawcross, which was unveiled at Moorgate station in 2023.

The unveiling of Infinite Accumulation occured about a month after London’s Serpentine Galleries showcased its public bronze sculpture by Kusama next to the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. Pumpkin is 19.5 feet tall, has a diameter of 18 feet and is painted yellow with black polka dots in the Japanese artist’s signature style.