Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum opens a major Yayoi Kusama exhibition after her death last month

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Yellow tentacles decorated with rhythmic patterns of dots swirl around a room, the patterns echoed on the floor and the walls. Reflections bounce off mirrors, blurring the boundaries of the space at Amsterdam 's Stedelijk Museum.

The installation — specially created for an exhibition of the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who died Aug. 14 at age 97 — is titled “Infinity Mirrored Room — The Hope Of The Polka Dots Buried In Infinity Will Eternally Cover The Universe.”

The room is at the heart of the exhibition at the Stedelijk that opens this week, just two weeks after her death. What was to have been a retrospective has turned into a posthumous celebration of one of the globe's best known contemporary artists, who depicted her world splashed with polka dots and other repetitive motifs.

“We heard about her passing,” exhibition curator Leontine Coelewij told The Associated Press. “We decided to make it really a tribute. A tribute to her life. Tribute to her work, so that everybody can see what she is ... to us. So many wonderful works.”

Kusama's signature dots greet visitors before they even get into the museum in Amsterdam — they are plastered across its facade and even on red fabric wrapped around trees on the adjacent Museum Square.

Coelewij said that painting the dots was a way for the artist to process hallucinations she had from a young age. Among the works on display is a huge pumpkin made of fiber-reinforced plastic and polyurethane paint, its yellow skin covered in lines of black dots of varying sizes.

“So a lot of her work comes from these mental issues that she had,” Coelewij said. “And I think she made something beautiful out of it for her. It was also a way to explore ideas about infinity, for instance, like, how do we relate to the universe, to the cosmos, to the world around us?”

Kusama had long-standing links to the Netherlands and the Stedelijk. She was active in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities in the freewheeling 1960s, and her work was closely aligned to the ZERO movement established in the late 1950s by German artists, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene.

She was part of a landmark exhibition by the movement, also at the Stedelijk, in 1965. A photo from that Amsterdam exhibition shows Kusama, wearing a white kimono, standing among artists from the movement — mostly men in suits and ties.

In a famous “happening” in 1967, Kusama covered the naked body of Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven with painted dots in the chapel of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam near Rotterdam.

“She really liked the whole atmosphere in the Netherlands, which was rather open and tolerant, liberal,” Coelewij said. “She was also part of the counterculture of that moment, the hippie culture. You know, Amsterdam was the magical center, and she felt very much at home here.”

The new exhibition spans through several rooms before going up an escalator lined with mirrors to reach the infinity room installation one floor up.

It's Coelewij's favorite part of the show, created for the exhibition that was previously staged at Museum Ludwig in the German city of Cologne.

“There’s a lot of mirrors, there’s tentacles, there’s a lot of color, and it’s a ... you can say hallucinating world. You really step into her mind,” Coelewij said.

It's a fitting tribute to the artist who said 10 years ago that she felt her life was nearing its end but she was “still fighting to the death for my art.”

“I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead,” Kusama had said.

The exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk opens on Friday and runs through Jan. 17.

Two people stand outside the Stedelijk Museum that is opening a major retrospective of recently deceased Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Corder)

FILE - A man walks past a work " Pumpkin " by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama during the Ravenel auction press preview in Hong Kong Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

FILE - Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, wearing a bright red wig and a Louis Vuitton polka dot scarf, speaks during an interview at her studio in Tokyo, on Aug. 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File)

Flowers and reflective balls are seen at a major retrospective of works by recently deceased Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Corder)

PARIS (AP) — The Eiffel Tower reopened Tuesday, a day after one of the world's most-visited landmarks was closed by a strike to protest what a union official called “unacceptable” management instructions limiting the presence of women during a visit by a Hindu delegation on Saturday.

Diane Davoine of the CGT union told The Associated Press anger grew among staff of the iconic 330-meter (1,083-foot) tower over the weekend after management told employees that female workers should ″not be in contact″ with a visiting delegation from Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha.

The group, known as BAPS, is a worldwide religious and civic organization within the Swaminarayan sect, a branch of Hinduism. It has been holding celebrations to mark the inauguration of a traditional Hindu stone temple in the French capital.

In a written statement emailed to the AP on Tuesday, the group said it coordinated with the Eiffel Tower's management to minimize disruption to staff and visitors ahead of a visit by a delegation of some 100 people.

The coordination was “never, at any point, intended as a request rooted in gender, and any suggestion to the contrary does not reflect the spirit or values of our fellowship or the delegation,” the statement said.

BAPS said it “remains firmly committed to the principles of equality, mutual respect, and service to all, regardless of gender, background, or belief — values that lie at the very heart of our tradition’s teachings and community work worldwide.”

In an earlier statement, the group offered “sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation.”

The company that operates the Eiffel Tower did not immediately comment. The 137-year-old tower is visited by some 7 million people each year.

Davoine said the tower often hosts special delegations, including U.S. President Donald Trump, visiting royals and celebrities like Britney Spears, and staff are happy to adapt. But she said the instructions Saturday were exceptional, and ″unacceptable.″

In a message on X, Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said he would launch an investigation.

“Gender equality will never stop at the foot of our historic monuments, or anywhere else in this city,” he said. “It must apply everywhere and to everyone. I will ensure that it does — everywhere, without exception.”

It was not the first time the tower has been closed by industrial action. It was shut for six days in February 2024 because of striking employees demanding better maintenance of the historic landmark, and higher wages.

Tourists walk past the Eiffel Tower after it reopened following a one-day strike over restrictions on women during a visit by a Hindu delegation, in Paris, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Tourists walk past the Eiffel Tower after it reopened following a one-day strike over restrictions on women during a visit by a Hindu delegation, in Paris, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

The Eiffel Tower reopens following a one-day strike over restrictions on women during a visit by a Hindu delegation, in Paris, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)