yayoi kusama spreads an infinity through the louisiana museum of modern art

yayoi kusama spreads an infinity through the louisiana museum of modern art
photo by kim hansen / courtesy of the louisiana museum of modern art

yayoi kusama : in infinity
louisiana museum of modern art, denmark
now through january 24, 2016

taking over the south wing of the louisiana museum of modern art, legendary japanese artist yayoi kusama presents her first comprehensive retrospective exhibition in scandinavia. ‘in infinity’ unfolds the artist’s oeuvre in chronological order, offering multiple works that embody her thematic and enduring fascination with infinity, cosmological and psychological spaces.

photo by kim hansen / courtesy of the louisiana museum of modern art

visitors are welcomed into an artistic experience replete with polka-dotted rooms, inflatable habitats, mirrored dwellings and a pumpkin-lined courtyard, forming an immersive series of all-encompassing installations. entire rooms, walls, floors and ceilings of the louisiana are canvassed in soft forms and starkly contrasting dots in black, yellow, white and red, wrapping viewers within kusama’s boundless visual universe.

photo by kim hansen / courtesy of the louisiana museum of modern art

the show centers around moments of radical innovation in kusama’s work. the first section of the exhibition is dedicated to her earliest drawings of nature subjects. subsequent galleries focus on kusama’s ground-breaking change after emigrating to new york and carefully selected works from the painting series ‘infinity nets’. in the next galleries, visitors happen upon ‘accumulations’, an installation of furniture covered in hundreds of soft sculptures resembling white, penis-like shapes. in the following space, ‘the priestess of the polka dots’ unfurls through richly documented material, slide shows and rare, original design objects from the 1960s.

photo by kim hansen / courtesy of the louisiana museum of modern art

in addition, louisiana shows a selection of monumental works from the period when kusama was one of the earliest artists to develop the installation genre. highlights include the psychedelic installation ‘polka dot love room’, which has been radically restored for the exhibition and is presented in its entirety for the first time since 1967, as well as the polka-dotted ‘mirror room (pumpkin)’, which became an indicative work for kusama’s contemporary oeuvre, and ‘dots obsession’, an inflatable field of over-sized objects reflected within a mirrored room. each of these seductive, multi-sensory spaces form dizzying and dazzling experiences for louisiana visitors, guiding them within the vast visual universe kusama has spent her entire life creating.

photo by kim hansen / courtesy of the louisiana museum of modern art