This Friday, the Cincinnati Art Museum will present one of Yayoi Kusama’s world-renowned Infinity Mirror Rooms for the first time.
Kusama, often hailed as the world’s most successful living artist and the current record-holder for the most expensive piece sold at auction by a female artist, began her career in Japan over seven decades ago. Her immersive 2016 installation “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins,” a room of mirrors full of glowing pumpkins as far as the eye can see, will be available to view starting Friday at the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM).
Dr. Ainsley M. Cameron, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs and initiatives, said the museum was “overdue” to exhibit Kusama’s work, so what took so long?
“Kusama is an internationally renowned artist, and this incredible force of nature in the contemporary art scene,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about ‘why now’… and it’s about the way that we are currently acting and behaving as a society. How we’re always looking at our phones. We’re always self-absorbed. We’re always tapped into the news. That we never get a chance to break out of that, to have that moment to be immersed in art, immersed in beauty, surrounded by joy, and that’s what Kusama brings.”
Inside the mirror room, viewers are surrounded by yellow gourds of various sizes adorned with black polka dots that are completely surrounded by mirrors. The result is an immersive installation that allows the visitor to become part of the artwork as they enter an infinite field of glowing pumpkins.
The installation illustrates Kusama’s characteristic themes, including infinity and obsessive repetition. The artist has described the pumpkin — one of her quintessential symbols — as a form of self-portraiture. In addition to the installation, a rare assemblage of a dozen of her Pumpkin acrylic paintings on canvas made between 1990–2004 will also greet gallery visitors.
Kusama first began her iconic series of mirror rooms in 1965 with “Phalli’s Field,” which similarly used mirrors to create a sense of endless space and featured a floor covered in hundreds of red-spotted, white fabric-stuffed tubes. Since then, each subsequent entry in the series has iterated on her experiential ideas, drawing viewers further and further into infinity. Cameron said Kusama’s visual language “can transform our daily experience, our thoughts, our minds and our hearts.”
“It’s so beautiful, it’s so pristine, it’s so minimalist in a lot of ways, but it’s really, really, really smart,” Cameron said. “Kusama is an incredibly intelligent artist, and she is getting us to think about the world beyond ourselves, getting us out of self, away from ego, to think about infinity, to think about the universe to think about realms of understanding and knowledge beyond what we hold … we’re giving our visitors an opportunity to unlock, to spend time with, and to really connect with the incredible artwork of this artist.”
The installation will be open from July 17–Oct. 18 in the museum’s Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Gallery and the Manuel and Rhoda Mayerson Gallery, located across from the Terrace Cafe.
“Emotional and neuroaesthetic wellbeing are ever present in Yayoi Kusama’s art,” said Cameron Kitchin, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. “Cincinnati Art Museum is proud to bring her most essential immersive environment to our region, in partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art. Connecting communities and inspiring people at the art museum is exemplified by the unique mind and experience of Yayoi Kusama.”
Tickets to step inside the infinity mirror room at “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins” are $17 and must be reserved in advance. All tickets will be timed, and only two visitors may enter the installation at one time. Photography is allowed (no flash) with cell phones and small cameras on lanyards only. Large cameras, tripods, monopods and selfie sticks are not permitted. For more information or to purchase tickets to the exhibition, click here.
