Yayoi Kusama, ‘In Infinity’ at the Louisiana Museum

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity
Installation shot
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Humlebaek, Denmark. Photo: Poul Buchard

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity.
Temporary exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

In Infinity is the title of a major retrospective dedicated to Yayoi Kusama, on view until January 2016 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in Humlebæk, Denmark.

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity
Installation shot
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Humlebaek, Denmark. Photo: Kim Hansen

The installations conceived by the Japanese artists are singularly powerful and captivating; her “rooms” whose walls, ceiling, and floor are spotted by a myriad of small shapes in visual and chromatic contrast with them, often amplified by mirroring surfaces, evoke a boundless physical and mental space. Sometimes Kusama places herself into her fanciful spaces, for example in the form of photographs where she dresses clothes speckled with the same patterns of the surrounding space, thus “vanishing” into the installation.

Kusama with Pumpkin, 2010. Mixed media
Installation View: Aichi Triennale 2010
Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; David Zwirner,
New York; and KUSAMA Enterprise. © Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama
Mirror Room (Pumpkin), 1991, Mixed media, variable dimensions.
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.

Arranged chronologically, the exhibition starts from Kusama’s early works, mostly drawings with nature subjects, while the subsequent galleries are dedicated to her work after moving to the United States in the Fifties and joining the New York avant-garde art scene. In this period Kusama developed the keystones that still inform her work: fantastic visions of dizzy spaces where one could disappear and be swallowed up by the universe.

Large installations are on view at the Louisiana Museum, including the restored “Pois Love Room”, created in 1967 and never publicly displayed after the 1960s.
A peculiarity of this exhibition is its focus on Kusama’s work as a fashion designer; the retrospective showcases dresses and costumes she designed for her performances in the 1960s and the 1970s, as well as recent works developed in collaboration with the Japanese designer Issey Miyake and the French fashion house Louis Vuitton.

Kusama in Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field.
Installation view Kusama’s solo exhibition “Floor Show” at R. Castellane Gallery, New York
Photo courtesy Kusama Studio

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity
Installation shots
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Humlebaek, Denmark. Photo: Poul Buchard

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity
[temporary exhibition]
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Humlebæk – Denmark
September 17, 2015 – January 24, 2016

Images courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
https://louisiana.dk/en/