Here’s Your First Look at Yayoi Kusama’s Latest Exhibition in New York -ARTnews

Installation view of “EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE” at David Zwirner in New York.

CLAIRE SELVIN/ARTNEWS

Exhibitions of Yayoi Kusama’s highly-Instagramable works are cropping up all over the U.S. this season, and the artist has even designed a balloon to soar over the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. One of the most hotly anticipated presentations of her art this fall is taking place at David Zwirner’s West 20th Street gallery in New York, where some 60 works, including a new “Infinity Mirror Room,” are now on view.

Installation view of “EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE” at David Zwirner in New York.

CLAIRE SELVIN/ARTNEWS

The show, titled “EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE,” opened to members of the press on Thursday afternoon, and guests were allowed one minute each inside DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE, a compact but dizzying mirror installation with LED lights that flicker between white and red. (The public opening for the exhibition is Saturday, November 9, and the same time constraints will apply to visitors who attend throughout its run. The gallery is expecting 100,000 people to come through the show.)

The exhibition spans the gallery’s two floors, and another treat can be found on the upper level. Kusama’s Ladder to Heaven (2019), a glowing ladder positioned between two mirrored bases, seems to stretch into infinity. The installation is set up in a dark room, shielded from the light of the rest of the white cube by a thick black curtain.

Other highlights include a room of biomorphic sculptures, made from stuffed fabric, acrylic, and metal, on the second floor, and a stainless steel installation, Clouds (2019) that covers much of the floor of the main gallery on the ground level. And, of course, there’s one of Kusama’s signature pumpkin sculptures, perched in the niche of the stairway.

A flyer distributed to guests includes a quotation from the artist—an ode, of sorts, to “my dearest art,” as she puts it.

“I will never cease dedicating my whole life to my love for the universe,” Kusama’s statement reads. “With the challenge of creating new art, I work as if dying; these works are my everything.”

View a selection of images of the exhibition below.