Part of the Artist’s Signature Series of Work, Installation Marks First Mirror Pumpkin Room Created by the Artist in Over Two Decades
Dallas, TX – September 18, 2017 – A special exhibition of one of Yayoi Kusama’s signature Infinity Mirror Rooms, encompassing a mesmerizing array of spotted pumpkins, opens at the Dallas Museum of Art on October 1, 2017. Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins features the first mirror pumpkin room created by Kusama since 1991. Showcasing Kusama’s singular approach to installation, the large-scale artwork draws on several of Kusama’s characteristic themes, including infinity, the sublime and obsessive repetition, creating an immersive and captivating visitor experience.
On view at the Museum through February 25, 2018, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016) is entering the Museum’s collection thanks to a joint acquisition of the work by The Rachofsky Collection and the DMA through the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund. With this addition, the mesmerizing and iconic work of art will become the only Infinity Mirror Room of its kind in a North American collection.
“The exhibition of this work of art provides opportunities to explore a range of contemporary art movements within our collection, as well as the undeniable influence of Kusama across decades,” said the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director Agustín Arteaga. “We are excited to share this boundary-pushing, experiential work with our visitors through the special exhibition Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins and to become the only museum in North America to have one of Kusama's pumpkin-themed mirror rooms represented in our collection.”
Kusama’s pioneering career spans over six decades, and her Infinity Mirror Rooms are some of her most experimental and iconic works, often incorporating a variety of illuminated objects. When they debuted in 1965, the mirrored installations represented a radically innovative step in the emergence of an increasingly experiential practice. In each work, the visitor’s reflection seems to extend into infinity while the visitor is simultaneously provided with an intimate and individualized room experience. The Infinity Mirror Rooms remain as challenging and unclassifiable today as when they were first presented, immersing visitors in dazzling environments that produce an almost hallucinatory effect through reflection and repetition.
With All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), Kusama incorporates one of her quintessential symbols, the spotted pumpkin. Expanding on her seminal pumpkin room, Mirror Room (Pumpkin) (1991), which was created for the Japanese Pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016) focuses the reflective chamber on a series of acrylic yellow gourds covered in black polka dots, and allows viewers to step inside the mirrored space and fully immerse themselves in Kusama’s creation, becoming part of the art.
“Kusama is known equally for her crowd-pleasing immersive environments and her critically acclaimed innovations in the field of contemporary art. Her work meditates on the heady and paradoxical intersections of life and death, infinity and nothingness, to exhilarating effect," added Anna Katherine Brodbeck, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA. “The Infinity Mirror Rooms are key to understanding her practice, and this major installation highlights one of Kusama’s most intense moments of innovation in a pioneering six decades of artistic production.”
Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins is made possible by the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund and The Rachofsky Collection. Courtesy YAYOI KUSAMA Inc., Ota Fine Arts Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London. Pending joint acquisition of The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund.
Visiting the Special Exhibition
The exhibition is designed to hold two people at a time and is intended to be experienced for 45 seconds. All visitors and DMA Members are required to have a timed special exhibition ticket, which is available online at DMA.org/Kusama. Tickets are $16; DMA Members and children 11 and under are free.
Photography is allowed with cell phones and small personal cameras. Tripods, monopods and selfie sticks are not permitted. Share your experience using #KusamaPumpkins on social media.
Programs will be scheduled throughout the run of the exhibition. For dates, prices and details, visit DMA.org.
About Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. In her early career, she immersed herself in the study of art, integrating a wide range of Eastern and Western influences, training in traditional Japanese painting while also exploring the European and American avant-garde. In the late 1950s, Kusama moved to the United States and during her time there worked tirelessly to position herself at the epicenter of the New York art scene. Kusama forged her own direction in sculpture and installation, adopting techniques of montage and soft sculpture that historians have seen as influencing artists such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. As the 1960s progressed, Kusama moved from painting, sculpture and collage to installations, films, performances and “happenings,” as well as political actions, counter-cultural events, fashion design and publishing. In 1973 Kusama returned to Japan, where she continues to live and work today.
Images: Yayoi Kusama, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (details), 2016, wood, mirror, plastic, acrylic, LED, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London, © Yayoi Kusama
About the Dallas Museum of Art
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is among the 10 largest art museums in the country and is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses more than 24,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. Since the Museum’s return to free general admission in 2013, the DMA has welcomed more 3.2 million visitors. For more information, visit DMA.org.
The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.