See One of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms in Cincinnati

Stepping inside Yayoi Kusama’s “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins,” visitors enter a dark, mirrored room where glowing yellow gourds with black polka dots seem to recede into the distance. Reflections bounce across every surface, surrounding those who enter the space with a kaleidoscopic pattern of infinite repetition. 

Infinity Mirror Rooms have been captivating art lovers and casual viewers alike since the renowned Japanese artist unveiled her first one in 1965. Titled “Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field,” that installation featured mirrored walls and a floor covered with hundreds of white stuffed tubes with red dots.

The first mirror room created by Kusama in over two decades, “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins” opened at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2017 and is part of the museum’s permanent collection. It is on loan for the Cincinnati Art Museum exhibition, which runs July 17 through Oct. 18. After more than six decades of making them, Kusama’s signature creation remains a distinctive art experience for viewers.  

“There is an urgent need around us to create community and define joy and to use experiencing art as a healing and connective thread,” says Ainsley M. Cameron, director of curatorial affairs and initiatives at the Cincinnati Art Museum. “Kusama’s work can do that.” 

While waiting for their timed entry to the Infinity Mirror Room that serves as the centerpiece of “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins,” exhibition visitors can view a dozen acrylic-on-canvas works Kusama made between 1990 and 2004. The paintings depict one of the artist’s quintessential symbols: pumpkins, which she has described as a form of self-portraiture. Two visitors at a time enter the Infinity Mirror Room for just 1 minute, 30 seconds, providing a personalized moment within the installation. 

“I think the Infinity Rooms are this really sort of awe-inspiring moment that you have — that you’re connecting with Kusama’s work,” Cameron says. “There are so many different aspects to her practice … [It] really helps you to understand who she is as an artist.

953 Eden Park Dr., Cincinnati 45202, 513/721-2787, cincinnatiartmuseum.org

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