MARIS HUTCHINSON, EPW STUDIO/©YAYOI KUSAMA/COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK; OTA FINE ARTS, TOKYO, SINGAPORE, AND SHANGHAI; AND VICTORIA MIRO, LONDON AND VENICE
The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto has raised funds to purchase Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirror Room” installation Let’s Survive Forever (2017), which, according to a CTV News report, is priced at $2 million in Canadian dollars (about $1.5 million in the U.S.). The AGO received contributions from more than 4,700 donors to an online campaign that yielded $651,183, and the rest of the funds for the acquisition came from the David Yuile & Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund, which is part of the AGO Foundation and is dedicated to acquisitions.
A release from the museum says that online donations ranged from $1 to $25,000, though most were between $25 and $100.
Let’s Survive Forever has never been exhibited in Canada. The work was recently loaned by a private collector to the Wndr Museum pop-up in Chicago, and it features silver orbs—floating from the ceiling and stationed on the ground—that are reflected in its mirrored walls.
The installation is slated to arrive at the AGO in Spring 2019, and donors will be the first to have the opportunity to see the work once it is installed. Let’s Survive Forever was first exhibited at David Zwirner gallery in New York in 2017.