Blockbuster Yayoi Kusama Exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum Extended for Second Time

March 23, 2023

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gallery in Washington, DC, is extending its Yayoi Kusama exhibition for a second time through July 16.

“One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection” was originally scheduled to close on November 27 last year. The Hirshhorn’s exhibition features two popular “Infinity Rooms” and other works from the museum’s permanent collection. The new closing date will also coincide with Kusama’s 94th birthday.

Phalli’s Field, Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room from 1965, was she made while living in New York and experimenting with performance art.

The second, Infinity Mirror Room — My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe (2018) was jointly acquired by the Hirshhorn and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, NY last January as part of a massive acquisition spree to the Smithsonian museum’s permanent collection during the pandemic.

ARTnews writer Shanti Escalante-de Mattei described the latter as “an immersive installation in which viewers enter a built environment which engulfs them with variously colored paper lanterns that are endlessly replicated by the work’s namesake mirrors. Painted in black, these lanterns feature Kusama’s signature dots in shades of blue, red, purple, orange and yellow, marking a sleek entry into the series.”

While admission to the Hirshhorn is free, next-day, timed-passes are required for anyone who wishes to see the highly Instagram-friendly Kusama exhibition.

The Hirshhorn’s previous Kusama show in 2017 brought in 475,000 visitors to the institution—nearly double the museum’s average during the spring, according to the Washington Post. Even Ivanka Trump paid a visit.

New Yorkers will also soon get to view a new Kusama Infinity Mirror Room, I Spend Each Day Looking at Flowers, room as part of a solo show at David Zwirner gallery of new paintings and sculptures by the artist. It opens on May 12.