Draft Episode for Sep 01, 2026

**Marion Maneker** (0:03)
She's like a pop star, she had her different eras, and she ended up towards the end of her life, you know, in a fairly advanced age, with a very powerful studio that has constant shows around the world.

**Peter Hamby** (0:20)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Tuesday, September 1st. Today I'm joined by Marion Maneker, with a look at the legacy of legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who died last week at age 97, and how her impact is far bigger than Infinity Mirrors, her Instagram-friendly exhibition that got a generation of influencers to go to the museum.
We also discuss whether lucrative baby boomer art collections will be snatched up by younger generations. We'll talk about all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
Happy Tuesday, everybody, and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined by my colleague Marion Maneker, author of Wall Power, our resident expert on the art markets. We're going to talk today, speaking of art markets, on whether there's too much art out there, that boomers are bequeathing to the next generation. Does anyone really want it? Bloomberg wrote a provocative article suggesting no, Marion has a reality check on that. But first, we're going to talk about Yayoi Kusama, who passed away just a few days ago, legendary Japanese artist, probably known best, for better or worse, honestly, for her exhibition Infinity Mirrors, which came out just as Instagram was taking off in the 2010s. I want to say I saw her at the Hirshhorn or her exhibition, 2013, 2014, Marion. But I wanted to talk to you about her legacy because she was obviously much more than that. It was hard to escape though when you were reading her obituaries, the story about Infinity Mirrors, which was this incredible visual art installation. And people were lining up outside of museums around the world to take selfies in the museums. Influencers wanted to get in, and there was kind of a snobby reaction to it. A lot of people out there, people who actually care about art in museums, thought that it was a little cheap that people were showing up just for a content activation with their friends to sort of pop their heads into these light installations and post it for the world to see. I had a little bit of that reaction, I remember feeling, but I also felt, you know, the flip side, it's getting people to museums, it's getting young people to museums, museums are making money off of this, that's a good thing generally. But I want your reaction to that take first of all.

**Marion Maneker** (3:01)
Oh, I couldn't agree more in the sense that her ability to draw crowds to museum shows around the world has been one of the signal things that has made her such an important artist. Let's remember she's like 97 years old, she's been at this for a very long time. She showed up in the States in the 50s, she had a relationship with a reclusive surrealist artist in Queens, Joseph Cornell. She was in Europe, she made her way around and had these incredible connections. And then she had a very long career that had different phases to it.
She's like a pop star, she had her different eras. And she ended up towards the end of her life, you know, in a fairly advanced age, with a very powerful studio that has constant shows around the world. That's one of the reasons she had a collab with LVMH is she's a universally recognized artist. And that doesn't happen by accident. It happens because she has, you know, people around her who are very smart about these things, and she has creative ideas that keep getting renewed. So if you know her art, the infinity, their boxes first and then rooms, is only a small part of what she's done. And I agree with you, getting people in to engage with the art, wanting to take selfies, to sort of peer into these spaces and be beguiled by them, that's really successful art. That's what we're sort of hoping for. And she's not a one trick pony. So, you know, there's all sorts of other stuff you can engage with.

**Peter Hamby** (4:41)
Yeah, I mean, she was very open about having mental health challenges. She had hallucinations as a child, which I think inspired Infinity Mirrors in part.
I read that she also, when she was a child in, I think Kyoto, Japan, she would draw pumpkins. And I remember you go to Infinity Mirrors and there was a lot of gourd-inspired artwork hanging around. Did you go to those exhibitions at the time?