Ohio governor and former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich has officially endorsed Yayoi Kusama. Kasich, who is an outspoken critic of President Trump and a potential challenger to him in the 2020 elections, recently visited the Kusama show at the Cleveland Museum of Art and found it “fantastic.”
As reported by the Art Newspaper, after Kasich and his family toured the blockbuster “Infinity Mirrors” show with museum director William M. Griswold, he concluded that Kusama might be just the antidote to recent bipartisan feuding. “Nobody who would go through here would say, ‘Well I’m a Republican, and it looked this way,'” he said. “People hang out here, they might have lunch together, actually have a few laughs instead of fighting with one another all the time.”
Kasich isn’t the only political heavyweight who has fallen under the Japanese artist’s spotted spell. Last spring, Ivanka Trump tweeted a picture of herself reclining in an “Obliteration Room” installation at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC.
Kusama’s exhibitions regularly infuse museums and galleries with a surge of attendance and press attention. Now perhaps they can also count them as a civic duty.
See more images from the show below.
Installation views of Yayoi Kusama, Ascension of Polkadots on the Trees at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo by David Brichford, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, ©Yayoi Kusama.
Installation view of Yayoi Kusama, Narcissus Garden at “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo by David Brichford, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Installation view of Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room – Love Forever (1966/94) in “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo by David Brichford, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Installation view of Yayoi Kusama, Dots Obsession – Love Transformed Into Dots (2007) in “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo by David Brichford, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room – Brilliance of the Souls (2014). Photo courtesy of the Museum MACAN, ©Yayoi Kusama.
Yayoi Kusama, The obliteration room (2002–), installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: Look Now, See Forever” at the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Photo courtesy of the Queensland Art Gallery.
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” is on view at the Cleveland Museum through September 30.