Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (7/11/2018)

Wednesday, July 11, 2018
We managed to get tickets to the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Our timed tickets were for 16:15.

Cleveland Museum of Art atrium with parts of the
Kusama exhibition including the pink "balloons"
rising up from the lower level

The line of people with tickets first goes to the mirrored "room" (Infinity Mirrored Room: Where the Lights in My Heart Go, 2016) to the left, where no more than 3 persons can enter at a time for no more than 20 seconds.

Detail of Narcissus Garden (originally 1966) (KSS)

We took the escalator down to the main exhibition. There are several of these Infinity Mirrored Rooms for no more than three persons at a time, for no more than 20 seconds. The last few rooms gave you 30 seconds!

There is a stand outside each room to leave
anything you are carrying, except a camera (KSS)

Infinity Mirrored Room: Phalli's Field (1965) (KSS)

Baby Stroller (1962) from the Accumulation series

Kusama spent hours hand-sewing and stuffing these phallic-shaped tubers and attaching them to walls, furniture, and found objects. She then discovered she could use mirrors to multiply the number and save herself some labor!

Infinity Mirrored Room: Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009) (KSS)

Infinity-Nets (2005)

Infinity-Nets detail showing the effect of painting
thousands of small arcs on a darker background

Accumulation of Stardust (2001)

Accumulation of Stardust detail (no brush strokes)

Instead of walking into a mirrored room, you peek into a window for this one:

Infinity Mirrored Room: Love Forever (1966) (KSS)

Infinity Mirrored Room: Love Forever (KSS)

My Eternal Soul (begun 2009) showing part of over 550 works (KSS)

Surrounded by Heartbeats (2014) and
My Adolescence in Bloom (2014)

No photos were allowed in the Infinity Mirrored Room: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), with Kusama's iconic polka-dotted pumpkins/squashes. In fact, you were accompanied into the room by a staff member.

Dots Obsession: Love Transformed into Dots
(2007) has a mirrored room in a pink ball

Dots Obsession mirrored room (KSS)

Dots Obsession floating up a level (KSS)

Life: Repetitive Vision (1998) (KSS)

Life: Repetitive Vision detail

Infinity Mirrored Room: The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away
(2013) (KSS)

The Obliteration Room where visitors are given
a small sheet of polka dot stickers to help obliterate
the original white room

"In this space, the polka dots act as a universal
equalizer, a connector between all of us as we
collectively participate in obliterating the
environment by placing dots in the installation."

We would love to see The Obliteration Room at the end of the exhibition!