The Yayoi Kusama exhibit “Infinity Mirrors” at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden http://hirshhorn.si.edu/kusama/ is the hottest show in Washington this year and is almost impossible to get into. Its six mirrored rooms are fantastical and fascinating, but you have to spend about 30-45 minutes in line waiting to get into each one, after which you are allowed exactly 20 SECONDS to view it along with two other people. The museum staff have stopwatches and throw you out when your time is up. Needless to say, not a good situation for picture taking, but we did what we could under the difficult circumstances.

This was my favorite mirrored room. Unfortunately, a visitor broke a pumpkin, causing the display to be closed for a few days.

A description of this room from the Hirshhorn:

Infinity Mirrored Room—All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins
2016
Wood, mirrors, plastic, acrylic, and LEDs
Collection of the artist
Coming from a family that cultivated and sold plant seeds for a living, Kusama saw a pumpkin for the first time during a childhood visit to a seed-harvesting farm with her grandfather. Nestled into the landscape between fields of zinnia, periwinkle, and nasturtium flowers, she spotted an unusually shaped gourd the size of a man’s head. The artist was attracted to the pumpkin for its “charming and winsome form,” celebrating its lumpy, unpretentious, organic shape. The pumpkin motif first appeared in some of Kusama’s drawings from the late 1940s and has repeatedly shown up in her paintings, sculptures, drawings, and installations. Her initial pumpkin mirrored room was staged in 1991 and was later displayed at the 1993 Venice Biennale. Stepping into Infinity Mirrored Room—All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, one is transported to a space that recalls fairytales and fantasy. The glowing pumpkins, modeled after the Japanese kabocha squash, are married with Kusama’s signature polka dot pattern within an infinitely repeating space.

More Kusama artwork, posted earlier: