Sunday, March 4, 2018

Yayoi Kusama at the AGO

Tickets to the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors show at the Art Gallery of Ontario are only available online. Before the show opened Toronto art lovers dutifully lined up to buy tickets on the AGO's website -- some waiting a very long time.
Then there are line-ups at each of the Mirror rooms and visits are limited to three visitors at a time and 20 seconds per group. Is it worth all that waiting? Yes, it is worth the wait.
The six Infinity Mirror Rooms are the absolute highlights of the show. Here we are in Phalli's Field, 'Floor Show' from 1965. Playful polka-dotted phalli carpet the floor.
It was also interesting to see Kusama's paintings: Accumulation of Stardust, 2001
and works on paper: Waiting for Spring in the Hole.
The infinity rooms are quite small. The infinity room in this installation (Love Transformed into Dots, 2007), is in that sphere on the left.
 Bill is taking the pictures inside Love Transformed into Dots.
The AGO also showed some of Kusama's terrific sculpture.
Here is Life (Repetitive Vision) from 1998
The short line-ups were handled very efficiently by AGO staff. Visitors were in high spirits.
 Here is the delightful LED landscape inside the mirrored cube above: Love Forever, 1966/1994.
Kusama's trademark dots have invaded the city view on the stairs leading from the fifth floor to the fourth. Fun.
The path through the fourth floor tour finishes with a generous display of paintings and sculpture.
The sculptures were particularly playful.
The fourth floor is also where you will find one of the most memorable of the mirror rooms: The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, 2013. I felt like I was standing on a platform in deep space.  If you haven't bought tickets yet -- now is the time.

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