Yayoi Kusama's Infinity

Transcript

Now have you ever wondered what infinity might look like? Well the 87 year old Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama has pretty much captured the experience at an exhibition at the Hirshhorn museum in Washington. It's become one of the art events of the year with long queues to glimpse inside her so called infinity rooms. Jane o'Brien went to see what all the fuss is about.

It's easy to get lost in one of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Rooms, even though they're physically quite tiny. Mirrors and lights warp our perceptions of what is real and what is illusion.

"We are living in a time when almost everything that we see and experience is through digital technology, through social media, through - you now - our emailing and so that is so much a part of our lives and our perception that she reminds us that there is this other aspect of - you know - experiencing space that sometimes is more tactile."

To understand how Kusama reached infinity you need to step into her White Room. As a child Kusama had a vision of polka dots. It led to an acute neurosis which she confronted by focusing on dots in her art. Visitors are encouraged to stick them everywhere in this room, eventually obliterating the white and leading to oblivion; which brings us back to infinity.

At first being in this room makes me feel incredibly happy. I'm surrounded by glow-in-the-dark pumpkins for goodness sake. But after a couple of seconds it actually becomes quite disturbing because this is probably the closest any of us will come to seeing what infinity must look like, and once you grasp that, you realise how utterly insignificant you really are.

Most people inside these rooms immediately reach for their cell phones. This is, after all, the ultimate selfie. But not so fast says museum director, Melisa Chie.

"If you are in this Infinity Room and you don't stop and put down your phone you're not truly experiencing her, because it's this moment at which you are alone in the cosmos in one of these pieces and it's a very compelling, kind of poignant experience."

Get past the show-stopping Infinity Rooms and there's plenty more to tickle the senses. Voluptuous sculptures, dots, appendages, dots and more dots. Yayoi Kusama is arguably Japan's most important contemporary artist. This show reveals why her appeal is global. Jane o'Brien, BBC News, Washington.