Kusama infinity room joins Tel Aviv museum’s permanent display
Installation was included in Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s massive 2021 retrospective at Tel Aviv Museum of Art and is now returning home
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art will permanently display a Yayoi Kusama infinity mirror room, beginning in June.
This particular Kusama infinity mirror room, an immersive experience that mimics peering into a life-size kaleidoscope, was created for and displayed at the museum in 2021 as part of the museum’s massive retrospective of the Japanese artist.
“It’s been displayed in Berlin and other locations since then,” said curator Shahar Molcho, “and now it’s coming back to us.”
The room, titled “The Eternally Infinite Light of the Universe Illuminating the Quest for Truth,” which the 96-year-old artist created in 2020, was one of four mirrored rooms in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art exhibit.
While Kusama’s staff was on hand in 2021 to set up the installations among the artist’s 250 artworks displayed during that exhibit, the Japanese team now “knows that we know now how to set up Kusama’s artwork,” said Molcho, and the Tel Aviv staff will put together the installation, which will be placed in the lower floor of the Herta and Paul Amir building.
This infinity mirror room is on renewable loan to the museum for the next eight years, said a museum representative.
Entrance to Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room will only be available to one or two visitors at a time, for a period of about one minute. It will be included in the price of a museum entrance ticket and will require pre-registration on the museum website.
The infinity mirror room will open on a limited basis starting on Thursdays in June from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. During the summer, the mirror room will be open during the museum’s operating hours and for special events, with updated information available on the museum’s website and social media platforms.
Kusama’s mirrored rooms have become magnets, according to a museum statement.
The long-term loan of the installation to the museum was initiated by collector Steeve Nassima, and was made possible thanks to the support of Melanie and Matthew Bronfman, Anne and Roland Luria and Steeve Nassima.
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