SF’s Wild New “Infinity Mirror Rooms” Coming This Fall
SFMOMA just announced a second “Infinity Mirror Room” as part of the brand new exhibition, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, the first opportunity for audiences to experience Yayoi Kusama’s famed Infinity Mirror Rooms in the Bay Area.
Today, SFMOMA reveals a second Infinity Mirror Room included in the presentation: LOVE IS CALLING, one of the largest and most immersive of such installations by the artist to date. In addition, SFMOMA will exhibit Kusama’s monumental sculpture Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023), in which the artist pushes the polka-dotted pumpkin to new extremes.
Yayoi Kusama’s irresistible psychedelic art installations invite viewers to step into dazzling mirrored spaces that convey a feeling of unlimited potential and possibility. Opening to the public on October 14, 2023, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love is the artist’s first solo museum presentation in Northern California and will feature two Infinity Mirror Rooms. For many audiences, this will be the first chance to see Kusama’s latest work, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love (2023), following its acclaimed debut in New York at David Zwirner gallery.
Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love
October 14, 2023–September 7, 2024
SFMOMA, 151 Third Street, SF
The special exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love has a $10 surcharge for all nonmembers aged 19 and older.How Much are Tickets to SFMOMA’s Yahoi Kusama: Infinite Love Mirror Rooms?
Starting October 14, 2023, general admission ticket rates for the SFMOMA will increase to $30 for adults, $25 for seniors, and $23 for young adults (ages 19–24). Admission for visitors 18 and younger will remain free.
The special exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love has a $10 surcharge for all nonmembers aged 19 and older.So, adult tickets to the exhibition will be $40 ($30 general admission + $10 surcharge)
Tickets On Sale:
- Two Weeks of Member Previews: September 29–October 13, 2023
- Member Tickets Available on September 5, 2023
- General Public Tickets Available September 12, 2023
- Sign up for ticket alerts
Hours + Admission
Museum hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Fridays through Tuesdays and 1–8 p.m. on Thursdays (closed Wednesdays). Current visitor information can be found at sfmoma.org/visit.
SFMOMA members enjoy free admission to Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love. Members may reserve timed tickets beginning September 5 at tickets.sfmoma.org and will also have first access to subsequent releases of tickets throughout the run of the exhibition. Visit sfmoma.org/membership for more information.
For nonmembers, timed tickets for Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love beginning October 14 will go on sale September 12 at tickets.sfmoma.org. The special exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love has a $10 surcharge for all nonmembers aged 19 and older.
Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023) is located on Floor 5 and is included in general museum admission without timed entry.
Are there Free Days for Infinite Love?
Yes! Following the presentation’s opening day on October 14, 2023, SFMOMA will offer a number of Free Days for Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love, including First Thursdays, Free Family Days and Free Community Days.
- During First Thursdays beginning in November, there will be a limited number of tickets available to Bay Area residents for free admission to Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love with advanced reservation.
- On Free Family Days, general admission to the museum is free for up to four adults accompanying one child or teen (18 and younger).
Tickets for Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love during Free Days must be booked in advance. Only a limited number of tickets will be available on site. More details available at sfmoma.org/free-days. For information about other free and discounted admission programs, visit sfmoma.org/deals-discounts.
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Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love features two of the artist’s latest astonishing Infinity Mirror Rooms: room-sized, experiential artworks that transport viewers into dreamlike universes of seemingly endless reflections. Distinctly recognizable, Kusama’s fascinating Infinity Mirror Rooms surround the viewer with surfaces that reflect a repetition of shapes—such as colorful polka dots, circles and spheres—together with fragments of one’s own reflection. The mirrored walls of the rooms may create a sense of existing in multiple locations across an infinite universe. This presentation offers visitors the unique opportunity to see two works by Kusama—made one decade apart—that epitomize the artist’s diverse interests in light, space, sculpture and poetry.
Kusama’s Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love (2023), welcomes the viewer into a universe of multicolored light. At first, the exterior of this sculptural work blends into the gallery’s all-white surroundings, punctuated by an array of large transparent acrylic dots, including a quadrant—or quarter-dot—door at one corner for visitors to enter. In the interior, bright ambient light filters through the colored windows to create a luminous, kaleidoscopic pattern of overlapping circles. As visitors turn around in the space, the mirrored surfaces create an environment that is constantly in flux.
One of the largest and the most immersive of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, LOVE IS CALLING (2013) welcomes visitors into a darkened, mirrored room illuminated by inflatable forms that extend from the floor and ceiling, gradually changing colors. LOVE IS CALLING incorporates the artist’s signature visual vocabulary that plays with the illusion of space: repeated forms, soft sculptures with bright colors and polka dots and reflective surfaces. As visitors walk through the installation, an audio recording of Kusama reciting a love poem in Japanese plays continuously. Written by the artist, the poem’s title translates to “Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears.” Exploring enduring themes including life and death, the poem poignantly expresses Kusama’s hope to spread a universal message of love through her art.
Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love exemplifies SFMOMA’s commitment to presenting the work of Asian and AAPI artists, including the first retrospective of Pacita Abad this fall, a gallery of paintings and drawings by Hung Liu and current and upcoming group exhibitions featuring key works from the museum’s collection by Japanese artists Yoko Ono, Tatsuo Miyajima, Rakuko Naito, Tadaaki Kuwayama and Takashi Arai, among others. SFMOMA is also recognized for its significant collection of Japanese photography.
Yayoi Kusama: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart
Opening Mid-September 2023
As a complement to Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love on Floor 6, SFMOMA will exhibit the artist’s monumental sculpture Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023) on Floor 5. This presentation of one of Kusama’s recent large-scale pumpkin sculptures will be included in general museum admission and will not require timed tickets.
Extending over 18 feet in length and more than 11 feet in height, the undulating form of this bronze sculpture winds through the space, enveloping visitors in its curving walls. Painted yellow, Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love is covered in Kusama’s signature polka dots repeated in a pattern that exaggerates the convex and concave gourd-like shapes. Kusama has said, “Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since my childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living. They are humble and amusing at the same time, and I have and always will celebrate them in my art.” Images of pumpkins can be found in her work since the 1940s, but began appearing more broadly beginning in the 1980s, as in such important works as Kusama’s open-air sculpture Pumpkin, installed on Naoshima Island, Japan, in 1994.
