![]() Yoshitake pointed out the pumpkin, which was on left side of the walkway, and the three of us mourned for the selfie-stick generation. The 13-square-foot room was narrow, but it would have taken the most oblivious of narcissists to go so far off All the Eternal Love I Have For Pumpkin ’s walkway as to break one of pumpkins. Weeks prior, The New York Times had reported on how a “self-absorbed art fan reaching for the perfect selfie” had destroyed one of Kusama’s LED pumpkins (valued at $800,000) with their selfie stick. Yamamura, Yoshitake and I explored the final Infinity Mirror room, All the Eternal Love I Have For Pumpkins together, and it was impossible not to ask about the infamous “smashing pumpkin” incident. She explained that she had designed the exhibition space to be open and uncluttered so as to both highlight and counterbalance the intimate quality of the Infinity Mirror rooms. ![]() It culminated in an Obliteration Room, which is a white room which visitors cover with different colored polka dots, thus creating a feeling of kaleidoscopic euphoria. Yoshitake led us through the ensuing Infinity Mirror rooms, and the remainder of the exhibition. Her television interview had gone well, Yoshitake reported, save for the fact that she had failed to meet the interviewer’s expectations, and “make Kusama sick enough.” The curator argued that the exhibition was not about Kusama’s obsessive compulsive and depressive tendencies, but rather a celebration of Kusama’s talent and perseverance in a post-war white male dominated art world. After congratulating Yoshitake on the exhibition’s success, she expressed a note of discontent. Yoshitake was wonderfully friendly, and she and Yamamura shared hugs and a gift of mushroom miso that Yamamura had brought from Japan. Midori Yamamura looking into Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room-Love Forever,1994. Luckily, I had five more opportunities to more deeply experience what Kusama scholar Gloria Sutton called the “semiotic relationship between body and space” that the rooms provided. With Katy Perry’s notorious Infinity Mirror selfie in mind, I snapped away and then immediately regretted my proclivity for being a self-serving millennial. The walls were lined with mirrors which multiplied the phalli infinitely, presenting viewers with an example of one of Kusama’s “visual hallucinations.” Because we were given only 30 seconds to experience the phallic field, I wasn’t sure whether I should be taking selfies to brag about my experience to Instagram, or to stare into Kusama’s obsessive psychosis. The first Infinity Mirror Room that Yamamura and I entered was Phalli’s Field, a 15-square-foot, low-ceilinged room decorated in red-and-white polka dotted stuffed-pillow phalli. I, too, was enamored by the hallucinogenic promise of the exhibition. Yamamura was overjoyed with Violet Obsession ’s presentation. The walls were coated in repeating photographs of the rowboat and a warm, eerie violet light flooded the artwork. The exhibition opened with a visceral piece: Kusama’s 1994 Accumulation piece, a rowboat and oars upholstered with soft stuffed pillows in the shape of phalluses. Midori Yamamura and Isabella LiPuma in Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room-Phalli’s Field,1962-64. Yoshitake was finishing up an interview, so Yamamura and I explored Violet Obsession (1994) and Phalli’s Field (1965) for ourselves. Yamamura and I were ushered into the exhibition at 9:45 to meet with curator Mika Yoshitake, a friend of Yamamura’s. The Hirshhorn was buzzing before it even opened. Visitors lined up with iPhones, the seemingly requisite accessories to Infinity Mirrors for the “selfie” generation. An accumulation of red and white polka dots decorated the museum facade with a friendly serendipity. I met Professor Yamamura outside the Hirshhorn on the morning of March 9th. Thanks to my Fordham professor Midori Yamamura, I was able to experience Kusama’s brilliant world of infinity from an insider’s perspective. Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors, a collection of small, luminescent mirrored rooms, curated by Mika Yoshitake, has welcomed the masses to celebrate Kusama’s 65-year-career with a dazzling retrospective. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., a division of the Smithsonian, launched its most highly attended exhibition ever on February 23rd (over 14,000 people went in the first week!).
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