--- title: "Immersive, Iconic, Unforgettable: Thank You 🔴🟡🔵" subtitle: "Two last late night with the polka dots, then Turtle Island calls" image: XXX event: session1: 2026-09-03 10:30 session2: 2026-09-03 18:30 venue: Museum Ludwig venueUrl: https://www.museum-ludwig.de/ venueAddress: Heinrich-Böll-Platz, 50667 Köln price: 28.00 priceReduced: 8.00 information: "KölnTag: free museum entry with Kölner Ausweis. Register one week before. Min. 5, max. 15 participants. Please transfer the ArtTalk fee promptly to fix your ArtTalk place. If you pay and can’t come, let me know before the AT to get your payment back." meetingPoint: "Central foyer, at the bench, by the column with the BLUE dot." # newsletterSubject: You went back FOUR times?? Record-breaking 50th birthday show 🥳 with over 350,000 visitors! # newsletterPreviewLine: Last Yayoi Kusama call: Aug 1–2, open till 2am. Then Turtle Island on Sept 3. # newsletterSendingDateAndTime: July 5, 2026 @ 12:00 --- ## 🔴 Immersive. Hypnotic. Unforgettable. Dear ArtTalkers, Thank you. That is really the whole message this week. The Yayoi Kusama ArtTalks brought out something special in this community. Fascinating is a word that kept coming up. So did deep. Several of you told me the connection between the artwork and Kusama’s own life story was genuinely moving, not just interesting. Immersive. Dizzying. Obsessive. Those are more or less Kusama’s own words for her work. They also describe what happened during the ArtTalks\! One regular ArtTalker went to see the Kusama show four times. Wow\! That is not a museum visit anymore. That is a relationship. 😍 ## 🌙 One last chance: the museum stays open until 2am Missed it, or want to go back? The Kusama exhibition closes on August 2, moves on to Amsterdam next, and Museum Ludwig is marking it with two very late nights. On Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2, the museum stays open until 2am. From 8pm it is first come, first served: tickets are sold only at the museum’s own ticket office that evening, no online booking. Waiting in line is part of the _Kusamania_ experience ;) ## 🌎 Next up! Turtle Island, September 3 After Kusama’s polka dots, we land somewhere completely different. On September 3, ArtTalk walks into _HERE AND NOW: Collecting Memories from Turtle Island_, and the space offers something unexpected right away: thirteen tin cones hang from the ceiling and ring softly when you brush past them. That’s Marie Watt’s _Thirteen Moons_, built around a healing ceremony that was once outlawed in the United States of America. From there we meet Wendy Red Star, whose staged self-portraits turn the camera back on a century of clichés about Native identity, sharp and funny at once. One question drives the whole ArtTalk and this special show; who gets collected, who gets remembered, and who decides? 👉 [Sign up for September 3](https://art-talks.de/here-and-now-collecting-memories-from-turtle-island/) ## 🫶 Welcome to newcomers A lot of you found ArtTalks through the Kusama Insta/FB reels this spring, so here’s a proper hello 👋 ArtTalks run in my native US English, and you do not need any art background to join - only a certain curiosity. We reflect together in front of the artwork. I still do most of the talking and story telling 😉 And one more tradition: after the ArtTalks, the group often meets afterwards in a café nearby. Half the conversation happens there. Looking forward to seeing you after my summer break\! 🏖️ Artfully yours 🖼️ {*Karla\ *} Karla Schlaepfer\ *[www.art-talks.de](https://art-talks.de) — more news, videos and blog posts* 👉 Follow [@arttalks.cologne on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/arttalks.cologne/) for more behind-the-scenes and amazing reels by Kata\! ## Coming up next! 🌎 *HERE AND NOW: Collecting Memories from Turtle Island* 3 September 2026 \| 10\:30 + 18\:30 \| Museum Ludwig Indigenous perspectives on who museums collect, and who gets left out of the frame. 👉 [Sign up / Anmelden](https://art-talks.de/here-and-now-collecting-memories-from-turtle-island/#sign-up) ## 🎨 Further Reading on Turtle Island *e-flux* [De/Collecting Memories from Turtle Island](https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/6785092/de-collecting-memories-from-turtle-island) The museum’s own account of the show: how Thirteen Moons pairs with century-old postcard photographs to question whose version of America gets remembered.