Yayoi Kusama, Visionary Artist Behind Iconic Polka Dots, Dies at 97

Yayoi Kusama, who transformed the act of looking into an act of dissolving — into pattern, into light, into the infinite — died Wednesday in Tokyo at 97. For more than seven decades, the Japanese artist pursued a singular vision rooted in obsessive repetition, building immersive worlds from polka dots and mirrors that drew millions into a space where the self momentarily disappeared. She arrived in New York in 1957 as an outsider and left history as one of its most consequential artists, proof that a vision held long enough and fiercely enough eventually reshapes the world around it.