The Yayoi Kusama exhibit “Infinity Mirrors” at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden http://hirshhorn.si.edu/kusama/ is the hottest show in Washington this year and is almost impossible to get into. Its six mirrored rooms are fantastical and fascinating, but you have to spend about 30-45 minutes in line waiting to get into each one, after which you are allowed exactly 20 SECONDS to view it along with two other people. The museum staff have stopwatches and throw you out when your time is up. Needless to say, not a good situation for picture taking, but we did what we could under the difficult circumstances.

The colors and light kept changing in this mirrored room, which was in a box-like structure that you had to peek in to, an opportunity for countless SPs.

A description of this room from the Hirshhorn:

Infinity Mirrored Room—Love Forever
1966/1994
Wood, mirrors, metal, and lightbulbs
Collection of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore
Infinity Mirrored Room—Love Forever is an iteration of the second mirrored environment Kusama created. Sculptural, architectural, and performative, the installation blurs the lines between artistic disciplines and is activated by audience participation. Hexagonal in shape and mirrored on all sides, Love Forever features two peepholes that invite visitors to peer in and see both themselves and another participant repeated into infinity. At the time Kusama created this Infinity Mirror Room, she was experimenting with new technology and viewed the work as a “machine for animation.” During the 1966 exhibition opening of Kusama’s Peep Show, which featured this work, Kusama distributed buttons with the message “Love Forever” printed on them. For the artist, the concept of “Love Forever” stood for civil rights, sexual liberation, the antiwar movement, and the activist groups of the 1960s.

Just the four of us… or is that 400? posted earlier: