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.

This is another of Kusama’s works titled “Violet Obsession,” created in 1994, about which MoMA wrote: “Since the 1960s Kusama has been making sculptures she calls ‘Accumulations.’ She affixes sewn-and-stuffed phallic protrusions to everyday objects—ladders, shoes, furniture—which she then arranges in installations, some room-sized. Violet Obsession is a monumental Accumulation: a rowboat with oars, electric purple and covered in irregular oblong forms. The effect is at once humorous and unsettling; Kusama offers a wry commentary on the phallus as a symbol of virility and power.”

The color is debatable; I’ve seen several variations online, but a picture that appeared in The Washington Post from Getty Images, taken at this particular exhibit, looks about the same as this. I must admit, this is not a realistic shutter speed for me and this camera ;-).

‘The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away,’ posted earlier: