The experience calls the mind the climactic moment of the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, in which our protagonist stares into the void and proclaims “it’s full of stars” in awe before being whisked off to a galaxy far away.
This pair of eye-popping installations in New York by Yayoi Kusama at the David Zwirner Gallery takes visitors into a field of suspended and spectrum-spanning LED lights, organically staggered like stars, and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
The all-encompassing effect extends to the very door you enter through and close behind you, leaving you and as plank (Silver Surfer board, perhaps) as the only objects in a sea of apparent infinity(images by Steven Meidenbauer, and Rebecca Dale Photography via Colossal).
The artist has been making rooms along these lines for nearly half a century, but in these latest LED-filled wonderlands are the most immersive to date. The show also includes a series of illuminated sculptures, projected videos and wall-hung paintings, but culminates in this pair of these so-called Infinity Rooms that seem to step beyond the boundaries of an art gallery in exist in worlds all their own.
