Yayoi Kusama, installation view of “Longing for Eternity” (2017) from last year’s exhibition at David Zwirner, New York (all photos by Maris Hutchinson/EPW Studio, images © Yayoi Kusama and courtesy David Zwirner, New York; Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London/Venice; YAYOI KUSAMA Inc.)
Starting tomorrow, visitors to The Broad museum in Los Angeles can revel in an additional opportunity for psychedelic selfies. The museum announced today that it has acquired another Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room, which means it now owns a grand total of two installations from the Japanese artist’s dazzling series of works. It goes on view tomorrow to complement the Broad’s other Infinity Room, “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” (2013), which has been on display since 2015.
Titled “Longing for Eternity” (2017), this room is technically a hexagonal-shaped box filled with mirrors and LED lights. You can’t physically enter it, as you can with “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away,” which seems to house millions of radiant fireflies. Viewers are invited to sidle up to porthole-like windows in its side and peek into the chamber to gaze at infinity contained. Though less immersive than standing at the center of such a space, the experience is no less brilliant. Perhaps you had a chance to check it out last year, when it was included in David Zwirner’s New York City, exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life.
Yayoi Kusama, installation view of “Longing for Eternity” (2017) from last year’s exhibition at David Zwirner, New York
To see it at the Broad in person will, of course, require patience, as recent displays have indicated. The Broad, which hosted an exhibition of them last fall, told Hyperallergic earlier this year that wait times for “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” vary widely, “from just a few minutes to several hours.” Reached by email, a spokesperson today said the museum does not have estimated wait times, but said to “expect that onsite standby lines will be longer than usual.”
The museum offers tips to see the works, not unlike how a zoo tells visitors when your best chance is to catch its pandas at play. The Broad recommends that you book an admission ticket online and select an early timeslot to reserve. You’ll then have to sign up through the iPad kiosk in the lobby to join a “first-come, first-served virtual queue” for one or both rooms. The program will then send you a text once it’s your turn. (If you don’t have a cellphone, it kind of seems like you’re out of luck. No Kusama for you! Just kidding. Ask someone for help.)
The new Infinity Mirror Room is just one of a number of major acquisitions the museum revealed today. The Broad said that it has also acquired its first work by Kerry James Marshall, an untitled painting from 2017, as well as two works by Mark Bradford. One, “I heard you got arrested today” — which set a record at Phillips last week when it sold for $12 million — will be on view this summer.
Kerry James Marshall, “Untitled” (2017) (© Kerry James Marshall)
