In 2019 alone, Yayoi Kusama had a solo show at David Zwirner in New York and presentations at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio and the Westport Arts Center in Connecticut, and there were others. This year will be no different for the artist, who is enjoying late-career success, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., having announced a forthcoming exhibition and the Gropius Bau in Berlin planning a major retrospective.
Add to all that another major Kusama presentation headed to London. On the occasion of the museum’s 20th anniversary, starting May 11, Tate Modern will stage a yearlong exhibition of her works. “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms” will include two of the Japanese artist’s immersive “Infinity Mirror Rooms,” which art lovers and Instagram users around the world eagerly attend. The show will also feature photos and video footage of Kusama’s early performance pieces.
Among the reflective installations to be on view is Infinity Mirrored Room–Filled with the Brilliance of Life (2011/17), which sets blue, red, and green lights in a mirrored space, and Chandelier of Grief (2016), in which elaborate crystal light fixtures seem to engulf their surroundings. Infinity Mirrored Room–Filled with the Brilliance of Life has some history with Tate Modern—it was originally created for that museum’s 2012 Kusama retrospective.
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms” will coincide with a Kusama presentation at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where polka-dotted flower sculptures, a monumental bronze work titled Dancing Pumpkin (2020), paintings, and installations will span the institution’s 250 acres.
As part of its anniversary celebrations, Tate Modern will also reinstall Louise Bourgeois’s large-scale bronze spider Maman (1999) in the Turbine Hall, where it was on display when the museum opened in 2000.
Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern, said in a statement that Kusama and Bourgeois “not only represent our commitment to great artists with truly international careers, but they also embody art’s journey from the avant-gardes of the early 20th century to the immersive installations being created today.”
Tickets for “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms” go on sale March 1.
