Wildly-popular Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama will take part in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade® in New York with her own balloon design.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019, Kusama’s Love Flies Up to the Sky balloon will debut in the annual holiday tradition, seen by more than 3.5 million spectators and more than 50 million viewers nationwide.

The 90-year-old artist joins the festivities as part of the Parade’s Blue Sky Gallery series, which features a celebrated artist each year. The program has formerly highlighted Tom Otterness (Humpty Dumpty), Jeff Koons (Rabbit), Keith Haring (Figure with Heart), Takashi Murakami (Kaikai & Kiki), Tim Burton (B.), KAWS (Companion) and FriendsWithYou (Little Cloud).

The Love Flies Up to the Sky balloon is a sun-like face based on motifs drawn from Kusama's My Eternal Soul series of paintings begun in 2009. Vibrant and animated, the paintings embody Kusama’s innovative exploration of form and revolve around a tension between abstraction and figuration. The artist’s signature dots — which recur throughout her practice — also feature prominently in the Macy’s Parade balloon design.

Kusama's conceptual drawing for the balloon will be transformed into high-flying art by the artists of Macy’s Parade Studio under the artist’s exacting guidance. Using their expertise in 3D modeling, aerodynamic design and fabrication, the balloon specialists at the Parade Studio have constructed the work of art and painstakingly painted more than 300 of Kusama’s iconic dots on the multidimensional face and radiant biomorphic shapes that make up the unique design.

Coinciding with the parade is Kusama’s latest exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, on view from November 9 – December 14, 2019 at the gallery’s 537 West 20th Street location. The exhibition will feature paintings, sculptures, an immersive installation, and a new Infinity Mirror Room.

From 2012-2018, Yayoi Kusama had over 55 solo shows and exhibitions at more than 45 art institutions worldwide, covering more than 23 countries and breaking longtime attendance records. Over 6 million visitors have attended these exhibitions, many often waiting more than two hours to enter the exhibition and experience Kusama’s transformative work. The North American Tour of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, which traveled from 2017-2019 to six institutions, had over 599,800 visitors.