Yayoi Kusama: Where the Lights in My Heart Go
On view at Art Basel Hong Kong
Booth 1C 28
26–30 March 2024
Victoria Miro presents Where the Lights in my Heart Go by Yayoi Kusama, a work of dazzling complexity conjured solely by ambient light.
Throughout her career, Kusama has developed a unique and diverse body of work that, highly personal in nature, connects profoundly with global audiences. Central to Kusama’s practice is her acclaimed Infinity Mirror Rooms – immersive environments in which mirrors create the illusion of an expansive, infinite space. Where the Lights in My Heart Go is a polished stainless steel room punctured with small holes activated by natural light to create an ever-changing constellation. Kusama has referred to the effect as that of a ‘subtle planetarium’ – a space in which to ponder the mysteries of the physical and metaphysical universe. It is the first Infinity Mirror Room by Kusama which relies solely on ambient light to create an experience of entering an expansive cosmos.
Where the Lights in My Heart Go
Mirror polished stainless steel with glass mirror
2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5m
Yayoi Kusama, Where the Lights in My Heart Go, 2016
More info‘My art has always expressed the strong universal desire of humanity to experience the beauty of life and the marvellous mystery of the universe.’ — Yayoi Kusama
Where the Lights in My Heart Go is a work of two distinct characters. While its mirrored exterior both reflects and appears to merge with its surroundings, punctured with small holes it becomes, on the inside, a fathomless space filled by dots of light.
About the artist
Yayoi Kusama represented Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993, and currently lives and works in Tokyo, where the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in October 2017. Over the past decade there have been museum exhibitions of Kusama’s work touring the world in North America, Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, England, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. In 2016 Kusama was selected as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People. She was also named the world’s most popular artist by various news outlets, based on figures reported by The Art Newspaper for global museum attendance. In 2016, Kusama received the Order of Culture, one of the highest honours bestowed by the Imperial Family. Kusama is the first woman to be honoured with the prestigious medal for drawings and sculptures.
Current major exhibitions include Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love at the San Francisco Museum of Art on view until 7 September 2024 and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms at Tate Modern, London, UK (18 May 2021–28 April 2024).
Recent institutional exhibitions include Yayoi Kusama: The Dutch Years 1965-1970 at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Netherlands (23 September 2023–25 February 2024); Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, The Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA (9 March 2023–11 February 2024); Yayoi Kusama’s Self Obliteration / Psychedelic World, Yayoi Kusama Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2023); Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons, The Warehouse, Factory International, Manchester, UK (2023); Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now at M+, Hong Kong (2023), travelling to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (2023); One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, US (2022–2023); Yayoi Kusama: My Soul Blooms Forever, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar (2022–2023); Yayoi Kusama: DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP INTO THE UNIVERSE at PHI Foundation, Montréal (2022–2023). The artist’s first major exhibition in Germany, Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective – A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe was on view at Gropius Bau in Berlin (2021), travelling to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2022). Further recent institutional exhibitions include KUSAMA: COSMIC NATURE, inspired by Kusama’s lifelong engagement with nature and fascination with the natural world, held at the New York Botanical Garden, New York (2021).
Forthcoming projects include Kusama’s first permanent UK installation for the new Crossrail station at Liverpool Street. Titled Infinite Accumulation, the site-specific work develops the artist’s instantly recognisable motif – the polka dot – into a series of flowing, mirrored steel sculptures, each up to 12 metres wide and 10 metres tall. Undulating tubular rods will support a sequence of highly polished spheres, guiding passengers from the public spaces outside the station into the eastern entrance of the Elizabeth line station at Liverpool Street.