SFMOMA gives Bay Area audiences their first opportunity to experience Yayoi Kusama's famed infinity mirror rooms this month.
Artist Yayoi Kusama
In matters of love and art, the heart and mind always remember—and San Francisco is about to embark on something unforgettable. Beginning this month, SFMOMA launches Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, two dazzling Infinity Mirror Rooms; it’s the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work in Northern California. The immersive, dreamlike universes reveal Kusama’s familiar polka dots in myriad colors on mirrored walls, giving patrons a sense of the infinite.
It’s easy to get carried away with Yayoi Kusama’s work. After all, the renowned Japanese artist has a worldwide following for her pop art and psychedelia sensibilities. Instantly recognizable and visually tangible, a Kusama installation weaves its way into our collective artistic dialogue.
Infinite Love offers Bay Area art patrons the opportunity to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors locally for the first time.
Two massive works comprise the exhibit. The first is “Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love” (2023), a sculptural piece that merges the gallery’s white surroundings with transparent acrylic dots for visitors to enter. Once inside, colored windows usher in ambient light to create dreamy, overlapping circles. “LOVE IS CALLING” (2013) is one of the largest of Kusama’s Infinite Mirror Rooms. Visitors enter a darkened, mirrored space punctuated with massive inflatable tentacles whose colors morph during the journey. Kusuma’s voice echoes in the room, reciting a love poem in Japanese.
Yayoi Kusama, “Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love” (2023)
Complementing the Infinite Love exhibit is “Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart” (2023), a large-scale bronze pumpkin sculpture painted yellow and dressed in the artist’s signature polka dots. (The pumpkin exhibit is on Floor 5, while the Infinite Love exhibit is on Floor 6.) “Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living,” says Kusama. “They are humble and amusing at the same time, and I have and always will celebrate them in my art.”
As we merge into a season filled with nature’s yearly broadcast of hues, Kusama’s arrival at SFMOMA is more than perfect; it’s a visual prayer for the days ahead. Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, Oct. 14-Sep. 7, 2024; Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, Through Aug. 2025, 151 3rd St., 415.357.4000, sfmoma.org
Photography by: COURTESY THE ARTIST, DAVID ZWIRNER, OTA FINE ARTS, AND VICTORIA MIRO; © YAYOI KUSAMA; PHOTO: YUSUKE MIYAZAKI
SFMOMA gives Bay Area audiences their first opportunity to experience Yayoi Kusama's famed infinity mirror rooms this month.
Artist Yayoi Kusama
In matters of love and art, the heart and mind always remember—and San Francisco is about to embark on something unforgettable. Beginning this month, SFMOMA launches Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, two dazzling Infinity Mirror Rooms; it’s the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work in Northern California. The immersive, dreamlike universes reveal Kusama’s familiar polka dots in myriad colors on mirrored walls, giving patrons a sense of the infinite.
It’s easy to get carried away with Yayoi Kusama’s work. After all, the renowned Japanese artist has a worldwide following for her pop art and psychedelia sensibilities. Instantly recognizable and visually tangible, a Kusama installation weaves its way into our collective artistic dialogue.
Infinite Love offers Bay Area art patrons the opportunity to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors locally for the first time.
Two massive works comprise the exhibit. The first is “Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love” (2023), a sculptural piece that merges the gallery’s white surroundings with transparent acrylic dots for visitors to enter. Once inside, colored windows usher in ambient light to create dreamy, overlapping circles. “LOVE IS CALLING” (2013) is one of the largest of Kusama’s Infinite Mirror Rooms. Visitors enter a darkened, mirrored space punctuated with massive inflatable tentacles whose colors morph during the journey. Kusuma’s voice echoes in the room, reciting a love poem in Japanese.
Yayoi Kusama, “Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love” (2023)
Complementing the Infinite Love exhibit is “Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart” (2023), a large-scale bronze pumpkin sculpture painted yellow and dressed in the artist’s signature polka dots. (The pumpkin exhibit is on Floor 5, while the Infinite Love exhibit is on Floor 6.) “Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living,” says Kusama. “They are humble and amusing at the same time, and I have and always will celebrate them in my art.”
As we merge into a season filled with nature’s yearly broadcast of hues, Kusama’s arrival at SFMOMA is more than perfect; it’s a visual prayer for the days ahead. Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, Oct. 14-Sep. 7, 2024; Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, Through Aug. 2025, 151 3rd St., 415.357.4000, sfmoma.org
Photography by: COURTESY THE ARTIST, DAVID ZWIRNER, OTA FINE ARTS, AND VICTORIA MIRO; © YAYOI KUSAMA; PHOTO: YUSUKE MIYAZAKI
