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.
There were a lot of these balloons outside this mirrored room as well.
A description of this room from the Hirshhorn:
Dots Obsession—Love Transformed into Dots
2007, installed 2017
Vinyl balloons, balloon dome with mirror room, peep-in mirror dome, and video projection
Courtesy Victoria Miro, London
In 1996, Kusama began creating a series of installations incorporating polka-dotted balloons. Hanging from the ceiling and occupying the floor, these inflatable objects disrupt the viewer’s path. Visitors can enter a mirrored room inside one of the balloons or peer inside another. The work engages visitors on contrasting scales: the tiny micro-space seen through a peephole and the macro life-sized space that envelops the viewer within the installation. A video monitor hanging from the ceiling of the gallery features Kusama singing one of her poems.
‘Violet Obsession,’ posted earlier:
