Looking Into Infinity

I was in Boston with time on my hands so I wandered over to WNDR, an art tech museum. Little did I know at the time that it held the work of Yayoi Kusama including her Infinity Rooms -Lets Survive Forever 2017.

Once I found it, I got very excited. It’s a unique opportunity, and I was going to enjoy it.

I arrived at the entrance of the Infinity Room, guarded by two WNDR staff members. There were rules to the room, set by Yayoi Kusama herself.

I had to leave my purse in a cubby and put those blue, crepe covers over my shoes, but they let me keep my phone to take pictures. And I was only allowed in the room for one minute. It’s a one-time deal, they won’t let you back in (at least on that day’s ticket). I can attest to that as I was there on a Thursday afternoon, and there wasn’t a line for it, and I asked.

In the Infinity room the goal is to stand in the center of the art, to experience the feeling of infinite space. The design is a series of mirrors across all the walls, with reflecting balls hanging from the ceiling and on the floor, so wherever you look, there you are.  Since they let me bring a camera in, you can see me in the room.

Whereas I loved the room, a minute was not enough to experience a sense of infinity. My first reaction was wow, how lovely. Silver everywhere – it felt celebratory. Then I started to see myself everywhere.  Of course, I had to take a few pictures, because I knew I wanted to share it. And then I had to leave, just when I was starting to get a sense of it.

I needed more time to get beyond the physicality of it – the mirrors, the Mini Me’s every place I looked, the silver balls.

I assume, rightly or wrongly, that infinity should feel light, airy, flying on the wind, not stuck in my physical form with my lumbering steps, clicking camera and noisy breath.  Given the strength of our physical bodies, and a natural inclination to look at ourselves, a minute was not enough to get beyond it. It was more of a tease, a promise, a reminder that infinity is out there, more than it generated a real sense of infinity.

Maybe, that is the true power of art.

Not what it gives us, not simply reflecting the world back to us, but its ability to move us, to hit at promises of what the world might be able to be.

If we could just learn to see beyond ourselves.