Over the summer, I had the chance to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors at the Seattle Art Museum. This was my first time seeing any of her work in person, and it was well worth getting a new membership for me and my partner.
These photos focus on the art that was not the Infinity Mirror Rooms, since you can’t really take a quick photo without getting yourself in it, too. Photos of the Infinity Mirror Rooms can be found on the SAM website, though.
All photos are mine unless otherwise noted; all art works are copyright Yayoi Kusama.
The SAM site has a good introduction to Kusama’s work:
yayoi kusama: infinity mirrors
jun 30 – sep 10 2017Infinity is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is easy to contemplate when you step inside one of artist Yayoi Kusama’s iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms in the new exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors. This major exhibition examines the contemporary Japanese artist’s significant 65-year career and contextualizes the notion of infinite expansion and accumulation in her work, culminating in her visually stunning Infinity Mirror Rooms. Visitors can immerse themselves in five of these kaleidoscopic environments where the viewer is endlessly reflected within fantastic landscapes—alongside examples from the artist’s beginnings: her mesmerizing and intimate drawings, her early Infinity Net paintings which grow on a canvas like cell formations, and her surreal sculptural objects covered with strange growth formations. These key works join more than 90 works on view, including large and vibrant paintings, sculpture, works on paper, as well as rare archival materials.
The 87-year-old artist continues to work at a brisk pace in her Tokyo studio. The exhibition features the North American debut of numerous new works. Her most recent painting series, My Eternal Soul (2009–present), may be the greatest surprise. Exuberant in color and paired with sculptures that bear titles such as My Adolescence in Bloom, they mark a striking progression in the use of Kusama’s signature symbol of the polka dot. Also in the US for the first time is the recently realized Infinity Mirror Room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, a field of yellow, dotted pumpkins spreading into infinity.
The 1960s were a crucial time for Kusama’s creative development. She was invited to show with the German Zero group, which had an interest in participatory installations. She embraced performance in her photographic documentation and began producing films and staging Anatomic Explosions, collective happenings in New York City where she took up residence in the late 1950s. Central to the exhibition is a recreation of Kusama’s original 1965, Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field, in which she displays a vast field of polka-dot covered, white tubers in a room lined with mirrors. This room merges Kusama’s Accumulations, which had previously existed as sculptural objects, into the illusion of an infinite space.
“I am deeply interested in trying to understand the relationship between people, society, and nature; and my work is forged from accumulations of these frictions.”
In a radical move that connects to participatory art, Kusama created The Obliteration Room in 2002. Kusama provides a white domestic interior of sofas, tables, chairs, and everyday objects and visitors are invited to complete the work. Kusama’s concept of obliteration finds new expression as the pristine white room is gradually covered in an accumulation of brightly colored dots, with the intention that the installation will transform during the run of the exhibition.
Yayoi Kusama. My Heart Soaring in the Sunset, 2013. Seattle Art Museum.
To me, the appeal of Kusama’s work lies is the pleasure of creating a motif or object one loves, like polka dots or pumpkins. The narrative reminds me, in a way, of creating fan art or taking selfies–art created for the artist’s pleasure that is often written off as vanity or being self-serving. When marginalized artists create the art they want to see, it’s easy to say “you’re just pandering to [an identity] audience” or “that isn’t real art [because it wasn’t commissioned by a white man from a white man].”
Yayoi Kusama. The Obliteration Room, 2002-present, installed 2017.
In the Infinity Mirror rooms, the audience becomes part of the art in the act of taking photos. (Only All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins was closed to photography.) In the Obliteration Room, museum-goers have the chance to add colorful round stickers to a completely white room with household objects, including a table with plates and glasses, a bookshelf, a bicycle, and a couch. The viewer can join in creating art as well as becoming part of the art.
Yayoi Kusama, “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity,” 2009. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore; Victoria Miro, London; David Zwirner, New York. © Yayoi Kusama. Via Hirshorn
The Infinity Mirror rooms also address the concepts of infinity and eternity, the place of self in the world, and the obliteration of self into something eternal. (Not to sound too Utena.)
Installation view of sculptures Surrounded by Heartbeats, With All My Flowering Heart, All About My Flowering Heart, My Love is Buried in Ten Petals, and A Tower of Love Reaches Heaven.
Installation view of sculptures The Season of Red Buds and A Tower of Love Reaches Heaven.
According to the signs at the museum, Phalli’s Field and Boat Acculumation were a way Kusama to work through a fear of phalli. I also see this as a means of reappropriating the power of the phallic symbol. We see towers and obelisks all over the U.S., where Kusama did much of her early work, but they’re always straight lines and made of hard materials. Kusama’s phalli are stuffed but soft-looking and the multitude of them distracts from the singular imagery. Additionally, it’s easy to laugh at a dick boat, and some of that laughter can take away the cultural power of the phallic symbol.
Yayoi Kusama. Boat Accumulation.
If you get a chance to see this in person, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The 20-30 seconds you get to spend in each Infinity Mirror Room is a treat, and while some of them lend themselves well to selfies, when going in to the Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity and others with lights, just enjoy it.
Did you see the exhibit? What did you think?
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