Permanent Yayoi Kusama Gallery Opens at Brazil’s Inhotim Sculpture Park

A vast sculpture park and museum in Brazil is now home to a permanent gallery devoted to Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose “Infinity Mirror Rooms” have generated mass appeal in the past decade.

Instituto Inhotim in Brumadinho recently opened its Galeria Yayoi Kusama, host to two of her installations, one of which is an “Infinity Mirror Room.” That work is Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009), a wood, metal, and glass construction. Once inside, viewers see their reflections multiply amid a panoply of lights.

A version of that work is also on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas, where there have reportedly been long lines to see the installation. Instituto Inhotim, run by collector Bernardo Paz, acquired the piece the year it was made.

Another Kusama that Inhotim acquired in 2008, I’m Here, But Nothing (2000), will be on view alongside it. That installation features pieces of furniture arranged around a room cast in black light. This allows certain dots to become illuminated.

Allan Schwartzman, a prominent art adviser and founding director of Inhotim, said in a statement, “the opening of Galeria Yayoi Kusama fulfills a central artistic ambition at Inhotim for the work of one of the most visionary artists of our time.”

In addition to these works, Narcissus Garden (1966/2009), an installation comprising floating silver orbs, will also be on view.

The gallery comes as Kusamamania reaches fever pitch around the world, with blowout exhibitions of her work being mounted at David Zwirner in New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain (where her retrospective traveled from the M+ museum in Hong Kong), and Factory International in Manchester, England.