Yayoi Kusama: My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe (Crystal Bridges Exhibition)
When I went to Crystal Bridges to see other exhibitions, I was given free tickets, twice, to see (or rather, to step inside briefly) Yayoi Kusama’s My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe.
This was my second time inside the Infinity Mirrored Rooms, but the first time I was aware of Kusama’s work was when I was living in Cleveland, and visited the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, which had a similar Infinity Mirror show going on. Tickets were obscenely priced, and I didn’t end up going, but I could see the line to go down a flight of stairs and into the showroom stretch across the main lobby of the museum and outside onto their sidewalk. (To give credit to Crystal Bridges, the time-stamped tickets forcing you to only show up to walk through the room at your specific time helped cut down the long lines.) The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art also was showing her film Self-Obliteration which I was fortunate enough to see.
From Yayoi Kusama’s Self-Obliteration (Jud Yalkut, 1967)
I’m sure there were variations and continuations of themes and styles (such as her pumpkin sculptures) in the different shows Kusama has put on across America in various galleries. However, mostly the work all felt the same to me. There were lots of polka dots, which could be interpreted as the expansion of plant and animal cells (in Self-Obliteration,the dots are painted onto animals and human bodies, and in the mirrored room, they are projected onto you as you see yourself in front of the mirror), or the reduction of planets and galaxies. There are flashing lights that change color (perhaps to suggest the colors are not what’s significant) and lots of repetition. In some cases, the repetition is achieved by Kusama literally painting out tons of the tiny dots, and in others, using mirrors to create the repetition.
Mostly, what I found aggravating about the room was the amount of work I had to put in, and how little this work is rewarded. You have to carefully watch where you step, try to remember the floor plan that was quickly explained to you, all while in a frenzy to “take it all in” within the one-minute span you’re given in the room before the knock of the attendant telling you your time is up. It’s just neat—if you’ve walked through once and got your cool picture, you’ve probably gotten the gist.
Which is really a stem of a bigger concern for me with these installation gallery spaces. Surrounding the room and adjacent to its entrance are beautiful and intriguing works by Diebenkorn, Rothko, Gene Davis, or Pat Stier, only to name a few. Works that celebrate and narrate contemporary art through history and help elevate each other in a curated space. Having the middle of this space be just a tool for cool selfies (which, granted, I got) feels to me incredibly vapid.
One could make the argument that perhaps this hype-driven show about Kusama’s celebrity status as an Instagram sensation is the point. Like Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe is more of a comment on our attachments to social media, celebrity culture, and the corporatization of the art market. The art we might not want, but the art we deserve. However, unlike Comedian, I found Kusama’s My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe to be completely anodyne. It’s beautiful, and no one would bat an eye at its place in a museum. “Fans” of Kusama’s work (as in, the literal hundreds of people who line up to pay $10 to go into the room) aren’t there to question if it belongs in a museum’s permanent collection, they’re mostly there for their Instagram picture. Sure, Comedian might be a tourist attraction with its novelty, but the Infinity Mirrored Rooms have a novelty that’s disguised with dishonesty—a different, arguably worse type of tourist attraction.
It’s worth noting that Crystal Bridges purchased My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe, adding it to their free to the public permanent collection, rather than displaying it for a brief show on loan. Alejo Benedetti, an assistant curator at Crystal Bridges said in a statement “We like to have as much of the collection on view as possible. It seems natural to have it permanently on view.” The rooms are estimated to cost about one to two million (Studio International) and when asked how much money was spent on the piece, Benedetti responded “We have a party line: ‘Once an artwork enters our collection, it’s priceless.’” (Artnet)
So again, perhaps this is all fine. Gallery spaces can be two different things, and more and more as I walk through them and think about their intended purposes, I find myself reminding myself my questions and critiques of the use of contemporary art spaces are a privilege many people do not have. I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve gotten to spend lots of leisure time in many different art museums, and rather than using that privilege for selfish gate-keeping, I think it’s important that we all try to find a more inclusive ground for anybody to join in the conversation. Despite my personal wish that the space My Heart Is Dancing Into The Universe takes up was used to feature some of Crystal Bridge’s collection not currently on display, it’s hard for me to dismiss that it hasn’t brought people downstairs to their contemporary art collection, not to mention to the museum in general. And it IS still beautiful, which I’ve been trying to remind myself lately is sometimes enough.
Works Cited
Greenberger, Alex. “Yayoi Kusama 'Infinity Mirrored Room' to Go on View Permanently at Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.” ARTnews.com, 18 Nov. 2019, www.artnews.com/art-news/news/yayoi-kusama-crystal-bridges-infinity-mirrored-room-13154/.
Kusama, Yayoi. “Kusama's Self-Obliteration (Jud Yalkut, 1967).” YouTube, 6 May 2013, https://youtu.be/n6wnhLqJqVE.
Simpson, Veronica. “Yayoi Kusama: The Moving Moment When I Went to the Universe.” Studio International - Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, 5 Nov. 2018, www.studiointernational.com/index.php/yayoi-kusama-moving-moment-when-i-went-to-universe-review-infinity-mirror-victoria-miro.