The widely-acclaimed Infinity Mirror Room by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, which uses mirrors to create the effect of infinite space, was officially open from Nov. 9 to Dec. 14 for free at the David Zwirner Gallery in Manhattan. You might’ve seen it on Instagram back in its 2017 New York City debut, when it was viewed by roughly 75,000 people.
Though originally created in 1965 under the title “Infinity Mirror Room– Phalli’s Field,” Kusama has produced the exhibit twenty unique times. The kaleidoscopic illusion created by the room is said to be completely captivating, indicated by lines of eager visitors with wait times of up to five hours long.
When I made my way over on a cold Wednesday morning at around 9 a.m., there was already a line forming around the block. I got in place in the back of the line, hot tea in hand, and waited. (The exhibit was open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on a first come, first entry basis. To avoid the wait, the best times to go were before the gallery opened on weekdays.)
An hour after the doors opened, I made it inside to the, well, inside line and then, to the actual exhibit— a small box with a door, which I’ll admit was a bit underwhelming from the outside. Four people are let inside the room at once, and their experience is limited to a strictly-timed 60 seconds.
When it was finally my turn, I was ready to see what all the hype was about. I had been wanting to visit the exhibit since my Instagram feed was soaked with pictures of it.
My group took off our jackets (with the exception of one girl who wanted to keep her fur coat on for pictures) outside of the room right before the guy manning the door opened it up. “Are you guys excited?” He asked us. “Yes!” we all chattered.
One girl in my group already had her iPhone out, ready to take pictures. The doorman noticed, saying, “Experience it first, before you take a picture!”
So in we went, and here’s what I saw: trippy visuals of balls of light that flash from white to red in a room lined by mirrors. When you look in any mirror, it seems as if the world extends forever. Because I had not yet had the experience of being in a completely mirrored room with balls of light, it is an experience unlike any that I have had. But was it as amazing as Instagram made it out to be? As five hour lines would imply it to be? No… The experience is basically over before it even starts, and the room was so small that the infinity effect seemed…limited.
The current culture of catering every event and experience to being “Instagrammable” is dangerous, and I’ll tell you why. The event lasted for a grand total of 60 seconds, and all that anyone in my group did was take selfies in the mirror. This experience, in its 1965 debut, was obviously popular for more than just it’s Instagram-worthiness but, nowadays, I can’t help but wonder why an attractive exhibit like this is so highly coveted.
“I think the exhibit is definitely so popular because of how much it’s being publicized on Instagram,” Margaux Temmerman (BA Global Studies ‘19) said after visiting the Infinity Mirror Room. “It alters the experience with the art. A lot of people are there just to say they’ve been and post about it online. They don’t necessarily have an opinion or understanding of the art they just interacted with, which I guess is typical for any art showing or museum nowadays.”
Lindsey Garrettson (BA Culture and Media ‘19) agreed. “[Kusama’s] shows subscribe to a specific kind of narcissist, which nowadays we all in one way or another identify with due to the accessibility of capturing ourselves through our phones by means of all the selfies and mirror reflections that we produce,” Garrettson said. “I think that if we continue to subsume our identities with the ways our devices capture our reflections, we can ultimately lose a sense of who we are.”
So, overall, I would encourage you to engage with experiences on a real level before snapping a picture. Even if you know that your Instagram posts are going to come out really, really cool.