Yayoi Kusama's Public Installations

The Concept Behind Infinity Rooms

Kusama’s exploration into infinity dates back to 1965, when she created her Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field, a room that translated her distinctive polka dot style into immersive reflections, designed to project the artist’s introspective visions of endless repetition. Creating illusions of infinite space, her Infinity Mirror Rooms utilise mirrors, lights and glassy surfaces to reflect images endlessly, and draw her viewers into a transcendent world of contemplation.

Kusama’s Infinity Rooms are an integral part of the artist’s continuous fascination with the transience of life and the inevitability of death. Inspired by personal experiences as a child, where symptoms of psychological distress manifested themselves as hallucinogenic visions, Kusama attempts to recreate this abstract world through her installations. Her creation of celestial spaces provides harmonious environments in which her viewers may reflect upon the passage of time. Her visitors become intrinsic additions to her installations, their participation and interaction with concepts of infinity, and their disappearance into these boundless spaces, aligning with Kusama’s concepts.

Notable Infinity Room Installations

Amongst Kusama’s most notable Infinity Rooms, her Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away and Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life are particularly popular. Spaces designed to project the viewer into an astral sphere, scattered with innumerable stars of the galaxy, Kusama employs mirrors and hundreds of LED lights to immerse her visitors into an environment of infinite space.

Another highly acclaimed work is Kusama’s 2009 installation Infinity Mirrored Room—Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity. Using mirrors and countless flickering golden lanterns, Kusama evokes images of the Japanese tradition of Toro Nagashi, a ceremony in which paper lanterns guide ancestral spirits back to their final resting place. The obliterated, endless illuminations of Kusama’s scattered lanterns imitate the artist’s ruminations surrounding death and the afterlife, and successfully immerse the viewer in a space of eternal reflections of impermanence.

Public Reception and Impact

The mesmerising, hypnotic nature of Kusama’s infinity rooms have earned her installations immense public interest and acclaim. During her exhibition at the Hirshhorn, nearly 160,000 people visited her Infinity Mirrors over a three month period. The artist’s innovative approach to interactive and public art demonstrates the transformative power of public art spaces. By providing shared cultural experiences through meditative places of reflection, Kusama expands public accessibility and interaction with art.

The Origin of the Obliteration Room

Kusama’s Obliteration Room began as a simple, completely white room furnished with white furniture. Visitors were given colourful polka dot stickers, imitating the artist’s trademark style, and had absolute freedom to place the spots wherever they chose, transforming the blank canvas into a unique explosion of vibrant colour. First staged at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002, Kusama’s Obliteration Room enrolled participants as active co-creators of her art, fostering a uniquely shared experience that engaged the public and offered an accessible interaction with contemporary art.

Global Installations and Popularity

The success and popularity of Kusama’s first Obliteration Room has resulted in her work being installed in numerous locations around the world, including the Tate Modern and the Hirshhorn Museum. Kusama’s influence on contemporary art is significant, and her installations have inspired generations of artists to create immersive environments that encourage viewers to become active participants rather than passive observers.

The Significance of Pumpkins in Kusama's Work

Pumpkins are a recurring motif in Kusama’s art, inspired by her childhood fascination with the fruit and their presence in her hallucinations. Her pumpkins have become iconic symbols of Kusama’s work and she attempts to externalise her visions and gain control over them by reproducing them in her art. Symbolising comfort, nostalgia and growth, pumpkins have become a signature and reoccuring theme in Kusama’s work, embodying her whimsical and distinctive style. In contrast with her abstract Infinity Rooms, Kusama’s pumpkins provide a comforting sense of finitude and tangibility, demonstrating the diversity of the artist's work.

“Since my childhood, pumpkins have been a great comfort to me, they are such tender things to touch, so appealing in colour and form. They are humble and amusing at the same time and speak to me of the joy of living.”

- Yayoi Kusama

Major Pumpkin Installations Around the World

In 1991, Kusama combined her Infinity Rooms concept with her trademark pumpkins, creating her Mirror Room (Pumpkin) installation. Consisting of innumerable, striking yellow pumpkins covered in black dots, and placed in a mirrored room, it inspired illusions of an endless field of glowing pumpkins. In 1994, Kusama produced another installation named Pumpkin, an enormous sculpture of a pumpkin in yellow, featuring Kusama’s iconic black polka dots. Kusama’s pumpkins have contributed to her international recognition and attract large crowds due to their playful and approachable nature. Her pumpkins can be found at numerous installations around the world, including the Victoria Miro Gallery in London, the New York Botanical Garden and the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan.

Expanding Accessibility to Art

Kusama’s public installations have played a pivotal role in transforming contemporary art into a more accessible medium. By inviting a broad audience to interact and immerse themselves in her artwork, Kusama installations foster shared cultural experiences that allow audiences to collectively appreciate contemporary art.

Creating Shared Cultural Experiences

Creating unorthodox and memorable experiences in the form of her pumpkins, Infinity Rooms and Obliteration Rooms, Kusama produces work that resonates across cultures and communities. Her influence on contemporary art is undeniable and inspires a more interactive relationship between artists and their audiences, as well as setting new standards for the transformative power of public art.