Art & Exhibitions
Ready to Wait in Line? Yayoi Kusama Will Debut Two New Infinity Rooms at David Zwirner Next Month
Kusama mania will touch down in New York—again—in November.
Kusama mania will touch down in New York—again—in November.
Sarah Cascone ShareShare This Article
Expect lines out the door at David Zwirner next month: the New York gallery is primed to have (another) Instagram hit on its hands with its upcoming Yayoi Kusama exhibition. The show, which opens November 2, will take over three separate Zwirner locations and include two new Infinity Mirror Rooms, as well as plenty of the artist’s signature polka dots.
At the downtown show, titled “Festival of Life,” visitors can peer in at one of the new Infinity Rooms through a peephole. They’ll see an endless field of shifting colored lights displayed in a hexagonal pattern.
The other new Infinity Room, also on view in Chelsea, will allow viewers to step into the space, sating your hunger for the perfect art selfie. The room is filled not with colored lightbulbs, but with stainless steel orbs. The artist previously used reflective spheres in her outdoor installation Narcissus Garden, which debuted at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and was restaged recently at the Glass House in Connecticut.
At Zwirner’s new Upper East Side space, Kusama’s “Infinity Nets” exhibition will focus on her painting series of the same name, featuring thick layers of paint in one or two colors, applied with rounded brushstrokes. The artist has four other paintings from the series on view in a special exhibition at New York’s Judd Foundation through December 9.
New Yorkers know what it takes to queue for Kusama. In 2015, visitors lined up around the block for the chance to step inside The Obliteration Room at David Zwirner. The all-white room gradually transformed into a riot of color as guests added colored stickers to its surfaces. This time around, the gallery says it has a plan in place to manage crowds, including additional staff and security.
As in her last outing with the gallery, Kusama is also showing paintings from her psychedelic-looking “My Eternal Soul” series, some 66 in all, downtown.
At Zwirner, the works will be paired with large new stainless steel flower sculptures, coated with colorful urethane paint. Massive blooms will also figure in the installation With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever (2011), which will be shown in the US for the first time. The white fiberglass-reinforced plastic tulips sprouting from giant flower pots will be adorned with a profusion of red polka dots.
Kusama’s latest New York moment coincides with her blockbuster traveling exhibition, “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” currently taking North America by storm. The show kicks off its already-sold-out run at the Broad this weekend. Meanwhile, tickets to the artist’s new museum in Tokyo are sold out through the end of the year.
“Festival of Life and Infinity Nets” are on view at David Zwirner, 525 and 533 West 19th Street and 34 East 69th Street, November 2–December 16, 2017.