Kusama: Encounters with the Infinite
I am a dot. From above, just a small speck, standing in line. One of the multitudes who have waited in lines over the years to see the profoundly affecting work of artist Yayoi Kusama.
I’m waiting in front of a white box, inside a larger white box - a gallery space at the Guggenheim in NYC. In a moment, just one more moment, promise, I will be given 60 seconds to experience infinity. Most of my 24 hour days are spent face first in the finite. I welcome the sensory exchange for more soul searching scenery. A woman warns us before entering that we may feel a change in depth perception and lists ways to exit. As if about to take flight, I wonder if we might also need to prepare for rough air or a change in cabin pressure.
Get ready.
Any second now.
“INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM – DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE” (2019)
The woman opens the white door and ushers me into an obliterating constellation. Spheres of endlessly reflecting light in every direction. Space. Color. Presence.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but one thing I thought for sure was that there would be others with me–phones aloft, a glittering Instagram feeding frenzy. But it’s just me. Just a dot. Alone in a black ocean of geometric distance - swimming in a red pulsing warmth, white and silver and then obsidian enveloping darkness. A cycle of light, on and off as I spin in slow circles, trying unsuccessfully to capture the moment to send it out into the universe for others to share. But this is a singular IRL experience. Photos and videos don’t begin to capture or contain it.
“In the dot, Kusama envisioned the universe. In the hazelnut, Julian saw all that had been created. What could be perceived as nothing, as worthless and insignificant, turned into a source of light.”
I thought it would be disquieting, but somehow there is a sense of tranquility I didn’t expect amidst the disorientation. A calm. A brief reprieve. Peace. All is well.
Or is it? I came to this space having recently experienced a profound loss. Experienc(ed)? …Experiencing. The boundaries of pain are permeable.
Kusama came to her work from a place of loss. From the disorientation of disappointment and death. Rejection. She felt the world shift and her place in it as well. At times, brief bouts of success. At times erased. Forgotten. Rejected. A woman of sorrows. Scorned. Shamed. Abandoned. Cast out. All before becoming obliterated by fame.
The pain at times became too much. And yet. And yet.
Some art you see and some art makes you feel seen.
She continued to create. She continued to dream. She persisted, and shared her struggles and sought help. She persevered in enveloping the world in her imagination. To immerse herself fully and wholeheartedly in her art and to create spaces where others could participate and fully immerse themselves.
Another visionary woman, acquainted with suffering, Julian of Norwich, had a revelation about the power of the finite transformed by infinite love. Written in the 1300's, her text sounds like it could be a title of one of Kusama’s works, Revelations of Divine Love. She shares an encounter that left her changed.
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.
In this little thing I saw three properties.
The first is that God made it.
The second that God loves it.
And the third, that God keeps it.”
― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
“If what we create could speak, what would it say? What is the Artist’s Statement of our lives and work? ”
In the dot, Kusama envisioned the universe. In the hazelnut, Julian saw all that had been created. What could be perceived as nothing, as worthless and insignificant, turned into a source of light. A source of limitless, boundless potential.
Much of my life is spent in transit. In New York City I am often in a liminal state, in between one place and another. In between thoughts and actions. Insignificant interruptions. Above and below. Finite worlds of subway tile, train times and inevitable delays. Just passing through.
It was during one of those everyday commutes that I had one of my first unexpected encounters with Yayoi Kusama. Along the walls, her work splayed out in thousands of glass fragments. An arresting mosaic of faces. All expressions. A playful interlude. When I first saw the mosaic at Grand Central Madison, I was stuck by the massive scale of this colorful vision. I stopped. I took pictures. I took delight. An ordinarily boring and endless hallway had been transformed and was transforming the experiences of the passers by in the process. Full of color and life. Full of creative possibility.
Art multiplies its impact in the embrace of a powerful encounter.
I later learned the title of the work. It instantly captures the connection I felt in that first encounter. The profound depth and perceptive pull that drew me to it. A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe (2022),
She wrote a poem to accompany the public art display.
“This is Yayoi Kusama.
I offer you a message of love, directly from my heart unto the universe.
May you all experience the true beauty of loving humanity.
Human life is beautiful.
My wish is to deliver this vision, with all that is my life, to the people of New York.”
On that day, I was one of those “people of New York.” Just one of the dots, pulsing through the halls. Encountering the beauty of one person’s love for another, translated through art.
Kusama’s words are a rousing rallying cry and also a challenge to speak freely and directly and selflessly. A template for gratitude and generosity. An invitation to embrace the unconventional. A conversation that sometimes only art can prompt.
If what we create could speak, what would it say? What is the Artist’s Statement of our lives and work?
This is ___
I offer you ___
May you all experience ____
My wish is to ____
To remember Kusama is to be reminded of the colorful intersection of life as art and art as life. To be reminded of the time in 2019, while visiting the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, my family and I happened upon her INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - LET'S SURVIVE FOREVER. Walking in the reflections of our refractions - glass and metal bluntly dissecting our fragile frames. Disorienting. As if washed up on the frothy shore of a mirror ball island. Together, but alone. Not knowing that soon, in 2020, “LET’S SURVIVE” would take on a new global meaning. Not knowing then the disorientation that would come to define a finite moment that felt like FOREVER.
"From the point of view of one who creates, everything is a gamble, a leap into the unknown." Kusama shares in her autobiography Infinity Net. We walk willingly into the unknown with Kusama. Somehow we know that the journey will leave us changed. To experience her work is to encounter both the self and the space beyond.
She created worlds. She expanded her own vision and allowed us space to see past present limitations.
As creatives, we can let the finite tether us or let it teach us to reach beyond. We can take small gifts and multiply them. We can make our work an invitation. Kusama did not let the endless nos and rejection stop her or stifle her. She faced immense difficulties and challenges. But she returned again and again to the work. Again and again to the gift.
Though Kusama experienced catastrophes on micro and macro scales, she left us with work and words and wisdom that assure us of the power of using our creative voice to overcome. To help others overcome. What we learn from the infinite is that even as we wait, we can continue to connect all the dots. We see them coming together to create a colorful and lasting work of art. Distance gives perspective. Our finite cares are passing. The peace that passes all understanding remains. Light in the darkness. Obliterated by Love. That is a lasting legacy that Julian of Norwich also echoes, a reassuring refrain running counter to our common caustic experiences and the broken shards of a fragmented world.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Learn more about Kusama and view her work:
In Memoriam: Yayoi Kusama 1929–2026
Yayoi Kusama’s INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM – DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE (2019) on view in Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now . On view now through January 10, 2027.
A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe (2022) at GRAND CENTRAL MADISON
Yayoi Kusama's INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - LET'S SURVIVE FOREVER at AGO TORONTO
On view now through October 25, 2026