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Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Announces Infinity Mirror Room on Permanent Display

In 2010 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work ‘Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field’ by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. It is a mirrored room that consumes the visitor and makes him or her a participant in the work. From 13 September the work will be permanently displayed in the museum’s entrance area.


Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (Floor Show), 1965 (1998). Sewn stuffed fabric, board, mirror room without ceiling. Courtesy Yayoi Kusama

Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (1965) is a key work in the oeuvre of one of the most important artists of the second half of the twentieth century. It is the first installation in which Yayoi Kusama (Matsumoto, 1929) made use of mirrors, a material that she has continued to use ever since and which, together with her characteristic dots, is an essential component of her oeuvre. Her large-scale installations have had a profound influence on the now widespread tradition of ‘environments’ in art.

Multifaceted oeuvre
Yayoi Kusama created a stir in the 1960s with her large installations in which the visitor was surrounded by thousands of small, colourful, stuffed – often phallic – textile objects. Her reputation was especially strong in the Netherlands: in the 1960s she exhibited more frequently here than in any other country. In 2008 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presented a retrospective exhibition of Kusama’s work, which included the Infinity Mirror Room.

Museum collection
The installation fits seamlessly within the museum’s collection. Alongside many important works by members of the Nul and Zero groups and associated movements, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has an extensive collection of Pop art, Op art and Minimalism. Kusama’s work forms an excellent complement to these aspects of the collection.

The work was acquired with the support of the Willem van Rede Foundation and the Mondriaan Foundation.

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