Hoping to avoid an hours-long line, I took the day off from work a couple of weeks ago to check out Yayoi Kusama's Festival of Life exhibition at David Zwirner.
I arrived at the gallery just before its 10am opening on a Wednesday morning and found a queue snaking from the gallery's entrance at 525 West 19th Street down to 11th Avenue and around the corner about a third of the way up the block. Fortunately, I chose an unseasonably warm day to play hooky, so the 90-minute wait was bearable.
Once inside, visitors are shuttled into another short queue to wait to enter Kusama's three mesmerizing installations, starting with one of the artist's two new Infinity Mirror Rooms. For sixty seconds, groups of six people are allowed inside the first installation, a small room lined with mirrored walls and filled with reflective stainless steel orbs dangling from the ceiling and neatly piled on the floor. A column in the center of the room offers another mirrored environment viewers can peek into through peepholes. Given the short amount of time inside the room, and other visitors quickly moving about trying to snap as many photographs as possible, it was difficult to fully experience and enjoy the work's "sense of infinity."
Yayoi Kusama, Festival of Life, Infinity Mirror Room
Once that quick minute is up, gallery-goers are then directed into a dark room featuring a second Infinity Mirror Room—this one a large black box outfitted with three large peepholes that reveal a dazzling scene composed of miniature, multi-colored light bulbs laid out in a hexagonal pattern that is mirrored infinitely.
Yayoi Kusama, Festival of Life, Infinity Mirror Room
The last room showcases Kusama's With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever (2011), a sculptural installation with three large-scale potted tulips painted in the same graphic red polka-dotted pattern as the room's ceiling, walls, and floor, creating a vibrant and dizzying visual experience while "diminishing the appearance of depth." This room was selfie central, with visitors excitedly snapping photos of themselves—once again hampering the experience and enjoyment of the work—in Kusama's polka-dotted dreamscape.
Yayoi Kusama, With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever (2011)
Don't forget to stop by the gallery next door at 533 West 19th Street to check out new large-scale stainless steel flower sculptures by Kusama as well as sixty-six paintings from My Eternal Soul, an ongoing series the artist started in the late 2000s. The dense abstract compositions feature faces, eyes, and flowers mixed in a flurry of colors, shapes, and forms in these feverish, psychedelic works.
Yayoi Kusama, My Eternal Soul and new flower sculptures on view at David Zwirner, 533 West 19th Street
Hurry! Yayoi Kusama's Festival of Life closes on Saturday, December 16. Due to the massive crowds flocking to the exhibit, the gallery has put together a FAQ list to help visitors plan their visit.
A concurrent exhibition featuring the artist's Infinity Nets paintings is on view at David Zwirner's uptown space at 34 East 69th Street through Friday, December 22.
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