Yayoi Kusama - Exhibition at Tate Modern

To ensure I was absorbing a variety of inspiration to inform my practice, I visited several different exhibitions alongside working on my painting, one of them being the Yayoi Kusama show: 'Infinity Mirror Rooms' at the Tate Modern. 

Although the work featured in this show doesn't exactly harbour the painterly qualities I am seeking in exhibitions through out my third year, it was still incredibly enjoyable and thought provoking nonetheless. The information provided concerning Kusama's relationship with sorrow and joy, explored in this show, was very insightful into the artist's inner world, how she portrays and responds to such emotions and how she portrays that in her work. This school of thought undoubtedly got me to reflect on my own practice and the similarities my work harbours to Kusama's, although dissimilar in appearance/ medium, very similar in concept/ topic. The photographs on display outside the infinity rooms were also very visually pleasing and were inspiring me in terms of palette choices, composition within an image and symbolism. Kusama's photographs often featured colourful and nude figures, covered in patterns and cascading across the photograph, full of motion. I feel features within my practice mirror these aspects and made me contemplate how else I could visually portray the concepts/ narratives present through-out my paintings. 

In addition to visiting the exhibition, I wrote a critical review of the show which will be included here: 

Critical review:

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms 

Tate Modern 

29 March 2021 to 27 March 2022 

 

 

Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’ invites you to indulge oneself in two of the galactic parallel universes the artist has brought to life in the heart of the Tate Modern, central London. This immersive experience entices the viewer to surpass the dimensions of the world as we know it and beckons us to lose ourselves, and the dimensions we pertain to, in the infinite twinkling reflections the rooms have to offer. 

Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Chandelier of Grief’, 2016/ 2018, is the first room you enter during your visit to the exhibition, an installation transporting you into an alternate realm within which you are surrounded by a seemingly endless array of slowly spinning bejewelled chandeliers. The naming of this space certainly harbours adverse connotations, yet the meaning is undisclosed by Kusama; coaxing its visitors to become further enthralled, not only by the disorientating visuals of the room but by its ambiguity.  

‘Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life’, 2011, is the second room Kusama has on display in ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’. The piece is an installation filled with mirrored walls enveloping a pathway the public walk along with a shallow pool of water surrounding the platform; creating an all-encompassing magical chamber, welcoming you into an enchanting portal and opening a door to see inside the artist’s inner psyche and visionary insights. 

These bewitching rooms and their contrasting themes effortlessly act as an antithesis to and beside one another. One boasting the brilliance of life and all its fantastical mysteries and colours, the other illuding to the horror's life entails – grief, mourning and sorrow. This contrast lends itself to let the viewer as an invitation to contemplate the highs and lows that the human existence evokes; suitably mirroring the themes prevalent throughout Kusama’s work.   

Outside these rooms is a collection of photographs and projections on display, providing some contextual information in support of the artist’s history, the creation of ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’ and how they came to be the renowned works of art they are today. With some of these images being exhibited to the public for the very first time it is highly advisable to attend the show while it’s still running, tickets can be purchased through a virtual queuing system online until Spring 2022.