Tate Modern currently hosts two of Kusama's 'Infinity Mirror Rooms'. The tickets for this exhibition were snapped up very quickly and it is currently sold out until October although more tickets will be released later in the summer for the remainder of its run until June 2022. If you can, grab tickets since it's well worth a visit.
I'm a late-comer to the joys of Kusama, only finding her in 2018 at at exhibition at Victoria Miro in Islington with her installations and artworks and, of course, an infinity room. I was stunned. So much colour and life, giant colourful shapes, pumpkins and flowers, large paintings, indoors and outside and a stunning infinity room in total darkness other than the lit up shapes hanging in infinite space. I loved it. I loved it so much that I sat in a queue to buy tickets to Tate Modern for over an hour when they went on sale - since when do you have to queue for tickets to an art exhibition?
The first room of the exhibition includes some text and photos of Kusama along with a 'viewer' with coloured windows to look through into infinity that you can't really get close enough to see properly. The next room includes more photographs, a film on rotation and the two infinity rooms. The first is 'Chandeliers of Grief', a dark room with one source of light - the chandelier hung in the centre of the room surrounded by mirrors so it's reflected for miles in all directions. It took a few seconds to adjust to the disorientating effect within the room but I soon got the lay-out and became more adventurous. I made the mistake at looking down underneath the chandelier to see the depths stretching on forever, down down down forever, a drop without a bottom to squash into. Scary!
The entrance to the next room, 'Filled with the Brilliance of Life', is just a few yards away and siren-called me to visit, so I did. Brilliance indeed. The room is dark but includes approximately 4, 597,348 tiny lights (I gave up counting at that point) suspended from the ceiling and all reflected in the mirrors and the little stream either side of the walkway to create an infinite universe of colour (don't mis-step or you'll get a wet foot). I think I was grinning madly the entire time I was in that room.
The room itself isn't very big but the lights go on forever in infinite space. The colours keep changing every few seconds, morphing from one display into the next, showing a new vista and new possibilities.
I loved that room so much that after I exited I immediately walked round the outside back to the entrance to go in a second time, on my own for a while and it was magical.
Entrance to the exhibition is timed and you're given a couple of minutes in the room in groups of two or three - the rooms are quite small so there's not much space and the numbers are kept small for both safety reasons and for enjoyment. If you want some joy in your life book tickets to this exhibition as soon as they become available, you won't be disappointed.
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