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Guided by her unique vision and unparalleled creativity, critically acclaimed artist Yayoi Kusama has been breaking new ground for more than six decades. In 1993, she became the first woman to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale, and last year, Time magazine named her one of the world's most influential people.
Born in 1929, Kusama grew up near her family's plant nursery in Matsumoto, Japan. At nineteen, following World War II, she went to Kyoto to study the traditional Japanese style of painting known as Nihonga. During this time, she began experimenting with abstraction, but it was not until she arrived in the United States, in 1957, that her career took off. Living in New York from 1958 to 1973, Kusama moved in avant-garde circles with such figures as Andy Warhol and Allan Kaprow while honing her signature dot and net motifs, developing soft sculpture, creating installation-based works, and staging Happenings (performance-based events). She first used mirrors as a multireflective device in Infinity Mirror Room -- Phalli's Field, 1965, transforming the intense repetition that marked some of her earlier works into an immersive experience. In 1973, she returned to Japan, where she has continued to develop her mirrored installations.
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is the first exhibition to focus on this pioneering body of work, presenting six rooms, the most ever shown together. The show traces the progression of Kusama's iconic installations alongside a selection of her other key artworks, highlighting some of her central themes, such as the celebration of life and its aftermath. Ranging from peep-show-like chambers to multimedia installations, each of these kaleidoscopic environments offers the chance to step into an illusion of infinite space. In addition, visitors have the opportunity to grasp the significance of Kusama's work amidst today's renewed interest in experiential practices and virtual spaces. |