If you want to experience infinity, you’re going to have to wait a long time. On a recent Saturday, the line to see Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s new Infinity Mirror Rooms stretched all the way around a Manhattan city block, the end of the line even meeting up
If you want to experience infinity, you’re going to have to wait a long time.
On a recent Saturday, the line to see Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s new Infinity Mirror Rooms stretched all the way around a Manhattan city block, the end of the line even meeting up with the beginning at the entrance to David Zwirner Gallery, and the wait as long as six hours.
Some 5,000 people came through that day, the gallery says, the busiest day yet for the exhibit, and yet more proof — if it were needed — of the massive popularity of Kusama, who’s been described as the top-selling living female artist. Among the 5,000 was not, however, Alla Kondrateva. The 27-year-old New Yorker took one look at the line and gave up, returning on a chilly weekday a few days later when the wait was much shorter. She was happy she returned.
«She’s really quirky,» Kondrateva said of the 88-year-old artist. Her work, she said, «is interactive, and it just draws people in — her style is just out there, eccentric.»
Like many who have passed through the gallery since the exhibit opened at the beginning of November, Kondrateva had seen Kusama’s work on Instagram, where the artist is a presence. Her famous Infinity Mirror Rooms — two new ones are being debuted at the current exhibit, called «Festival of Life» — are perfect for selfies. Hardly anyone leaves without one, or two, or 26. But Kondrateva said she tried to limit the impulse: «I feel like it kind of takes away from the whole experience because you’re not experiencing the art, you’re spending the whole time on your phone.»
And that time isn’t very long. After the lengthy wait outside, visitors get one minute — yes, 60 seconds — in the first Infinity Room, called «Let’s Survive Forever,» a mirror-lined space in which only four to six people can fit amid a slew of shiny mirrored orbs, some hanging from the ceiling, some attached to the floor.
