Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose dazzling Infinity Mirror rooms and instantly recognizable polka-dots, has died at 97.
Kusama died August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, according to a statement posted by her official website. Her studios said she continued painting until her final days.
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For Atlanta, Kusama’s death is also a reminder of an art-world phenomena that hit the city in recent years.
In 2018, the High Museum of Art hosted “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” bringing six of her immersive mirror rooms and more than 60 other works to Atlanta.
The exhibit became a sensation before it even opened. The High sold every advance ticket, while thousands of people clamored for a chance to experience Kusama’s mirrored worlds. The museum even released about 100 additional tickets each day to meet the demand.
The demand was so strong that the High gained 4,900 new members during the exhibition’s presale — more than twice the 2,000 new memberships the museum had anticipated.
At the time, Channel 2 Action News reported on the “mirror mania” surrounding the exhibition, with fans around the country lining up and competing for tickets to Kusama’s immersive installations.
By 2018, the #InfiniteKusama hashtag had reached 91 million Twitter and Instagram accounts. A selfie inside one of her Infinity Mirror rooms had become almost a rite of passage for museumgoers.
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Every stop of the “Infinity Mirrors” retrospective had sold out, with some fans even camping overnight for tickets.
The Atlanta exhibition was the final stop on that retrospective and included six Infinity Mirror rooms, including “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins” and “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away.”
But Kusama’s influence stretched far beyond the mirror rooms that made her a social media star.
She spent decades creating paintings, sculptures, performances, films, novels and poetry. Her distinctive dots and repeated patterns grew out of visual experiences she began having as a child, eventually becoming the foundation of an artistic career that spanned more than seven decades.
Her official statement said her studios will continue her wishes through art, with the goal of bringing “hope and strength” to people around the world.
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