By Ahana Ogle, Nutrition and Food Management with Foundation Year
Edited by Ben Jamieson, BA Broadcast and Digital Journalism
Sold out months in advance, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Rooms at the Tate Modern certainly draw a crowd. How, I’ll never quite understand. I was on the site when they first released tickets, and after 6 hours still hadn’t got to the front of the queue.
You have to queue (perhaps because of COVID, but social distancing isn’t enforced in the queues) for two, two-minute looks into Yayoi Kusama’s universe. Just about enough time to take the perfect selfie. Hardly enough time to lose your bearings, which is the point of her ‘disorientating’ halls of mirrors.
Kusama’s art is driven by her inner experiences, capturing things only the mind can see. Kusama has had visual hallucinations for almost her whole life. They have become her inspiration and have found their way into her art.
Walking into her Chandelier of Grief, I never quite lost my sense of planes, edges and boundaries (the aim of this artwork). The hexagonal chamber contains a slowly revolving crystal chandelier, its lights brightening and dimming, throwing dots of colour around the room reflected by several mirrors. It seems as if you are in a universe of endlessly rotating gears, although my choice of words makes it sound more captivating and enjoyable than I actually found it.
In her larger display, Filled with the Brilliance of Life, hanging lights glow and dim as they cycle through a programmed sequence of colour changes. As well as mirrors and a walkway, reflecting pools of water were meant to enhance the confusion, but I didn’t find that they really did. The staging of her lights and mirrors reminded me of the view from a flight landing into a city at night, not something I feel you need to pay to relive without having enjoyed an exotic break.
A series of portrait photographs of the artist taken over her long career flesh out the exhibition. Personally, I’d rather have had more time in the Infinity Mirrored Rooms.
Remind me why the experience is so hyped up again?
About the Writer: Ahana Ogle is a Nutrition and Food Management with Foundation Year student that enjoys the vibrancy of London living, trying different cuisines, and visiting museums and art galleries.