Yayoi Kusama’s room of infinity captivates Mumbai

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room, opens into a universe of breathtaking optical illusions at the NMACC in Mumbai

When I hear that the famous Infinity Mirror installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is in town, I just have to see it. So, I head to the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) where the installation has been mounted. While her artworks enjoy pride of place across the world, the 94-year-old Kusama currently resides in Japan.

The door to Infinity Mirrored Room: The Eternally Infinite Light of the Universe Illuminating the Quest for Truth 2020 opens to a completely new world that has hundreds of multi-coloured LED lights suspended at varying heights from the ceiling. As the door behind closes, I seem to enter a vast universe of illuminating lights that touches me from within.

I forget where the ceiling ends and the walls begin because, at this point, it starts to feel like I am also a part of this installation. The countless reflections in the mirrors of dotted lights and visitors create a sense of movement and stillness within an unending space. The installation fosters a feeling of being both a participant and an observer.

The Infinity Room is only about 296 x 622.4 x 622.4 cm, and hence can only accommodate up to 5 people at a time. To ensure an optimal viewing experience, each visitor’s viewing time is limited to a minute. 

An NMACC representative elaborates that Inside the Infinity Mirrored Room, hundreds of LED lights glow softly in different colours, all reflected on mirrored spheres and panels. The reflections eradicate a sense of a fixed perspective and offer an impression of a seemingly infinite universe.”

As Kusama has noted about her landmark series of Infinity Mirrored Rooms, the first of which was created in 1965, “When people see their own reflection multiplied to infinity, they sense that there is no limit to man’s ability to project himself into endless space.”

“Embodying the main principles of Kusama’s art making, this installation encompasses hundreds of LED lights and mirrored spheres that are threaded through stainless-steel posts, which visitors walk among,” explains a representative adding, “Dotted around the Cultural Centre’s concourses are a captivating array of permanent public art installations, and we are fortunate enough to have Kusama’s artwork as a part of the collection, along with works of several Indian artists such as N.S. Harsha’s ‘Seeker’s Paradise’, Reena Kallat’s ‘Closet Quarries I & II’, Vibha Galhotra’s ‘City Obscure’, Thukral & Tagra’s ‘Arboretum I’, Jagannath Panda’s ‘Earth’s Whisper’, Tanya Goel’s ‘Mechanism 12’ and more.”