Yayoi Kusama has already stunned tens of thousands who have already visited her amazing, jaw-dropping art show in Manchester this summer, however late entry to the exhibition is now available. Following a successful run during Manchester International Festival 2023, Yayoi Kusama’s You, Me and the Balloons exhibition has extended its opening hours at Manchester’s new landmark cultural venue, Factory International.
From August 4, visitors will now be able to experience the spectacular exhibition, Kusama’s largest and most ambitious immersive environment to date, on Friday and Saturday evenings, with tickets now available from 7.30pm and last entry at 9.45pm. However, be quick and don’t miss your chance as the exhibition ends on August 28.
The exhibition You, Me and the Balloons celebrates three decades of the pioneering Japanese artist’s inflatable artworks, which are brought together for the first time in this major exhibition. Created specially for Factory International in Manchester, this exhibition by Yayoi Kusama will feature works that are over ten metres tall – including giant dolls, spectacular tendrilled landscapes and a vast constellation of polka-dot spheres.
Kusama is renowned and adored for her surreal world of dots and pumpkins amongst other artistic motifs. One of Yayoi Kusama‘s most recent (and Instagrammable) attraction is the artist’s dazzling infinity rooms at London’s Tate Modern, alongside the Obliteration Room where visitors decorate a blank white apartment with colourful dots.
Kusama’s career spans eight decades and she is now a global phenomenon. In the Yayoi Kusama exhibition You, Me and the Balloons visitors will experience the vastness of her playful and kaleidoscopic universe.
Her hallucinatory paintings, sculptures, and immersive environments take us beyond ourselves and make us feel part of something greater. Unique in her ability to conjure wonder whilst also asking bigger questions about human existence, millions of people queue for hours to spend just a minute in Kusama’s cosmos.
In an interview for the exhibition catalogue, Yayoi Kusama said: “It would be interesting if people would experience the show as a wonderland. The experience of the scale is what’s important. Inflatable works expanded my creative means in terms of scale that could not have been achieved by stuffed soft sculptures, and the freedom of placing them up in the air.“
“For me, the world is genuinely full of surprises. It is not that I want to inspire a childlike awe or wonder, but to inspire through my genuine perception of the world.”
A free programme of family activities inspired by You, Me and the Balloons will run throughout the summer, from dance workshops, upcycling, craft making and other self-led learning activities led by local artists, makers and creators. On August 5, audiences can get a curator’s insight into the exhibition and Kusama’s life and work with an illustrated talk by Phoebe Greenwood, Curatorial Associate at Factory International, and Katy Wan, Assistant Curator at Tate and curator of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms.
The exhibition by Yayoi Kusama is now open to the public until August 28 at Factory International in Manchester with standard tickets costing £15. Book your tickets here.
Find Factory International at Water Street, Manchester, M3 4JQ.