Last chance for tickets to this blockbuster show
WHAT: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at the High Museum of Art
It’s the hottest ticket in town, and now you have one last chance to snag a spot for Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, the touring exhibition making its final stop in Atlanta at the High Museum of Art. More than 120,000 advance tickets to the exhibition sold out in September, but the High reserved the final week in case of inclement weather. The High plans to release tickets for any unneeded inclement weather days during the final week (Feb. 11 through 17) online on Tuesday, Feb. 5.
WHEN: Tickets will be on sale Feb. 5 only (beginning at 10 a.m.).
WHERE: Visit www.high.org/kusama beginning at 10 a.m. on Feb. 5 to purchase tickets.
HOW: Tickets must be purchased through the High’s website (www.high.org) and will not be available by phone or in person at the Museum. Due to the unique nature the exhibition, all tickets are issued for specific time slots.
General admission ticket prices:
$29 for visitors ages 6 and over
$5 for visitors ages 5 and under (purchase may include up to two tickets from this category)
- Maximum six tickets per purchase
- All visitors (including infants) must have a timed ticket
- One adult must accompany every two children (ages 12 and under)
VIP tickets:
- VIP tickets are $175 each and include an exhibition catalogue and special viewing hours.
- VIP hours are scheduled for Feb. 12 through 17 (Tuesday through Sunday) from 6 to 10 p.m.
Please note:
Same-day, walk-up tickets will not be sold from Feb. 11 through Feb. 17. All tickets for those dates must be purchased in advance online.
In the event of a closure due to inclement weather from Feb. 11 through Feb. 17, refunds will be issued to the original ticket purchaser.
MORE DETAILS: An extensive list of FAQs is online at www.high.org/kusama with more specifics about ticket purchases, tips for planning your visit and details about the immersive exhibition experience.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: Spanning the entire second floor of the High’s Wieland Pavilion, “Infinity Mirrors” takes visitors on a once-in-a-lifetime journey through more than 60 years of Kusama’s creative genius, focusing on the evolution of her iconic kaleidoscopic environments called Infinity Mirror Rooms. The exhibition features six of the rooms as well as additional large-scale installations, sculptures, paintings, works on paper, archival photographs and films from the early 1950s through the present. The 89-year-old artist, who is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, is still very active in her Tokyo studio. New works in the exhibition include vibrantly colored paintings and the recently completed Infinity Room “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins” (2016), filled with dozens of Kusama’s signature bright-yellow, dotted pumpkin sculptures.
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” begins with the artist’s original landmark installation, “Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field” (1965/2016), featuring a vast expanse of red-spotted white tubers in a room lined with mirrors, which creates a dazzling illusion of infinite space.
The exhibition also includes “Infinity Mirrored Room—Love Forever” (1966/1994), a hexagonal chamber into which viewers peer from the outside to see colored flashing lights that reflect endlessly from ceiling to floor. The work is a re-creation of Kusama’s legendary 1966 mirror room “Kusama’s Peep Show” (or “Endless Love Show”), in which the artist staged group performances in her studio.
Kusama’s signature bold polka dots are featured in “Dots Obsession—Love Transformed into Dots” (2007), a domed, mirrored room filled with inflatable spheres suspended from the ceiling. The artist’s more recent LED environments, filled with lanterns or crystalline balls that seem to extend infinitely, are represented in “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity” (2009) and “Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” (2013).
“Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms open onto places within the imagination that are beautiful and transcendent. Like sensory-deprivation chambers, they leave the viewer grappling to reconcile the totality of the cosmos with a sense of microcosmic infinity within the body,” said Michael Rooks, the High’s Wieland Family curator of modern and contemporary art. “It is a privilege to present this foundational work by Kusama.”
Also on view in the exhibition are more than 60 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, including many of Kusama’s infrequently shown collages, which she made after returning to Japan following a stay in New York City from 1957 to 1973. These works trace the artist’s trajectory from her early surrealist works on paper, “Infinity Net” paintings and “Accumulation” assemblages to recent paintings and soft sculptures that highlight recurring themes of nature and fantasy, utopia and dystopia, unity and isolation, obsession and detachment and life and death.
The exhibition concludes with Kusama’s iconic participatory installation “The Obliteration Room” (2002), an all-white replica of a traditional domestic setting. Upon entering, visitors are invited to cover every surface of the furnished gallery with multicolored polka dot stickers to gradually engulf the entire space in color.
Prior to its presentation at the High, “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” was on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Feb. 23–May 14, 2017); Seattle Art Museum (June 30–Sept. 10, 2017); The Broad, Los Angeles (Oct. 21, 2017–Jan. 1, 2018); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (March 3–May 27, 2018); and Cleveland Museum of Art (July 7–Sept. 30, 2018).
About Yayoi Kusama
Born in 1929, Yayoi Kusama grew up near her family’s plant nursery in Matsumoto, Japan. At 19, following World War II, she moved to Kyoto to study a traditional Japanese style of painting known as Nihonga that is typically made on washi paper or silk. During this period, Kusama began experimenting with abstraction, though it was not until her arrival in the United States in 1957 that she embraced it fully and began the phase that would characterize her mature work. While living in New York between 1958 and 1973, Kusama worked closely with important artists of the 1960s art world—including Eva Hesse, Allan Kaprow and Donald Judd—while refining her signature dot and net motifs, developing her soft-sculpture pieces and creating her first installations and performance-based works. In her 1965 “Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field,” Kusama first used mirrors to transform the intense repetition that marked some of her earlier works into an enveloping, seemingly endless experience. The artist returned to Japan in 1973 and has continued to develop mirrored installations, expanding her earlier work into immense and often immersive environments. Today, Kusama maintains an active studio practice in Tokyo, Japan, and is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century.
Exhibition Catalogue
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue that takes an unprecedented interdisciplinary approach to the artist’s work and includes a catalogue raisonné of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, along with an illustrated chronology and artist biography with newly published archival material. Contributing authors introduce new research that sheds light on this pioneering contemporary artist. The book includes essays by Mika Yoshitake, former curator of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Gloria Sutton, associate professor of contemporary art history and new media at Northeastern University; and Alexander Dumbadze, professor of art history at The George Washington University. The essays are accompanied by an interview with Kusama by Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu.
Exhibition Organization and Support
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” is organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
This exhibition is made possible by Premier Exhibition Series Partner Bank of America; Exhibition Series Sponsors Delta Air Lines, Inc., and Turner; Premier Exhibition Series Supporters the Antinori Foundation, Sarah and Jim Kennedy, and Louise Sams and Jerome Grilhot; Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporter Anne Cox Chambers Foundation; Ambassador Exhibition Supporters Bloomberg, Georgia Natural Gas, Northside Hospital, Tom and Susan Wardell, and Rod Westmoreland; and Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters the Ron and Lisa Brill Family Charitable Trust, Lucinda W. Bunnen, Corporate Environments, Marcia and John Donnell, W. Daniel Ebersole and Sarah Eby-Ebersole, Peggy Foreman, Robin and Hilton Howell, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, and Margot and Danny McCaul. Generous support is also provided by the Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Marjorie and Carter Crittenden, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, Isobel Anne Fraser–Nancy Fraser Parker Exhibition Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, Massey Charitable Trust, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund, and Dr. Diane L. Wisebram.
About the High Museum of Art
Located in the heart of Atlanta, Ga., the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs. Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 17,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from pre-history through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper. The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process. For more information about the High, visit www.high.org.
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DIGITAL IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Media contact:
Marci Tate Davis
Manager of Public Relations
High Museum of Art
Tel: 404-733-4585
E-mail: marci.davis@high.org