Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is the most comprehensive exhibition by Yayoi Kusama (Japanese, born 1929) — one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists — to tour North America in over twenty years. The exhibition contextualizes the foundational role the concept of infinity has played in the artist’s work over many decades and through diverse media. 

This show takes visitors on an expansive journey across six decades of Kusama’s creative output and will explore the development of the artist’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, her iconic, kaleidoscopic environments. The exhibition presents six of these rooms as well as sculptures, paintings, works on paper, film excerpts, archival ephemera, and additional large-scale installations that span the early 1950s to the present day.

Also on view will be numerous new works by the 89-year-old artist, who remains active in her Tokyo studio. These include large-scale, vibrantly colored paintings and the recently realized infinity room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, featuring dozens of her signature bright yellow, dotted pumpkins.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Image: Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016). Wood, mirrors, plastic, glass, and LEDs. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore and Vistoria Miro, London. Copyright Yayoi Kusama.The installation focuses the reflective chamber on a series of acrylic yellow gourds covered in black polka dots, one of Kusama’s frequently used symbols. 

Note: Advance tickets for Infinity Mirrors at the High Museum have sold out.  There will be approximately 100 tickets available on site each day beginning on November 18.  The High is the final stop of five across the US for this popular traveling exhibition. 

Whether or not you go, the exhibition catalog, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, explores Yayoi Kusama’s best-known and most spectacular series―the Infinity Mirror Rooms―and its influence on the course of contemporary art over the past 50 years. Kusama’s iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms, which originated with Phalli’s Field in 1965, situate viewers in kaleidoscopic spaces filled with multicolored lights or whimsical forms. These mirror-lined installations reflect endlessly, distorting rooms to project the illusion of infinite space. ... Generously illustrated, this publication examines the Infinity Mirror Rooms series’ impact over the course of the artist’s career. Accompanying essays, an interview with the artist, and a scholarly chronology round out the book.

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