All art lovers have had those revelatory moments when visual art just blows our minds. It’s surprising, beautiful, provocative, painful, confusing and every kind of emotion at once. I think that’s what the small child in this video is feeling when he wanders into one of Yayoi Kusama‘s infinite dot rooms, installed in Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory. Also, it’s SO CUTE.
Kusama’s favored technique, the shtick that she has embraced throughout her career, is covering thing with dots. After an early period of producing happenings and art events in New York City in the 50s and 60s, the artist has turned to creating polka-dotted installations, paintings and sculptures. Kusama’s “infinity rooms,” including this legendary installation at Gagosian gallery, use mirrored walls to create endless spaces of dots.
Clearly this child is experiencing some of the more hallucinatory side effects of Kusama’s work. His dazed confusion is slowly overcome with excitement and joy, which is hopefully how we all feel when seeing great works of art. I wonder how the kid would react to Carsten Holler’s “Upside-Down Mushroom Room”?
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As canned as this sounds– I’m going to bookmark this article and watch that video whenever I need a reminder on how exciting it is to find the newness of art. Also, because it is completely adorable.
I’ll second what Rebecca said. That is adorable. Nice to see such a pure reaction to art, too.
what a guy, those shoes didn’t even give him pause…
OK. The upside-down Mushroom Room would push me over the edge!
I’m an artist…I’m a dot lover…”the little bit” found my love or I found his love !