More about Infinity Mirrored Room-The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away
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Some come to show their gaggle of social media followers they were there, others come to experience eternity.
Ethereal, surreal, spiritual. These are just a few words that are often used to describe this work by Yayoi Kusama. It is amazing how 75 lights, some mirrors, and a floor filled with water can transform your reality and consciousness just like that.
This thing is like the ultimate selfie mecca. When this piece was first shown at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York, about 2,500 people a day would line up for hours in return for just 45 seconds in this room. Not much has changed since this work found refuge in the Broad.
To see this piece you'll need to jump trough a couple hoops. First, you need to get your hands on a special timed ticket for entrance. To do this you have to arrive early and be one of the first six hundred people to get yourself on the list. Then, you play the waiting game. If you can do this, you will be granted a whopping one minute to yourself in the room. As short as that might seem, it should be enough time to invigorate you with a sense of awe and to snap a couple Instagram worthy pics. But is it enough time to experience infinity?
There is the chance you might be able to buy yourself some extra time...if you're really famous. Recently Adele recorded a music video for her song When We Were Young in the Infinity Mirrored Room. They let her stay in the room for a whole hour!
Also, this is only one of many mirrored rooms that Kusama has created throughout her life. While the others may not be quite as cosmic as this one, they still make for some pretty great selfies that should suffice if you aren’t able to snag yourself an entrance ticket to this one.
Much of Kusama’s work aims to create out of body experiences, and this work is no exception to that. But there is more going on here than meets the eye. Kusama has struggled with suicidal thoughts and mental illness throughout her life. Suffering from depersonalization syndrome, it seems fitting that Kusama would create work that makes us ponder the infinite potential that lies beyond our physical form. Quite impressive that such expansive ideas can be generated within the confines of a 13 x 13 foot box.
I find this piece by Yayoi Kusama extremely fascinating. The way she uses mirrors to make the room span what seems light-years when it is only about seven square feet is creative. When I see it, the first thought that comes to mind is a lit-up city, the second thought, a galaxy. I think the repetition in the piece aids the illusion of infinity as it goes on and on. It is also interesting how she uses dots repeatedly in her work, similar to that of another artist, Roy Lichtenstein. However, Lichtenstein uses the Ben-Day dots to make his work more pop art or comic book style. In contrast, Yayoi Kusama primarily uses her polka dots to trip the viewer as her inspiration comes from hallucinations. As she said, “I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.”
I believe that stepping into one of her Infinity Mirrored Rooms would be a fantastical experience, if not psychedelic and that this still picture can only show a fraction of that experience.