Following a major restoration project, Phoenix Art Museum is hosting a celebratory grand reopening of the popular infinity mirror room “You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies,” by Yayoi Kusama, this Saturday, Sept. 9.
The installation, which has been on view at the museum since 2006, will now be exhibited in a more accessible, central location on the museum’s first floor alongside new enhancements and didactics, offering visitors a more dynamic viewing experience. "You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies," the only Kusama infinity mirror room in the American Southwest, is included with general admission, and advance tickets are not required.
“Prior to this restoration work, Kusama’s wildly popular immersive installation had been on view in our galleries for well over a decade, one of the longest installations of an infinity mirror room in a U.S. art museum,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the museum’s Sybil Harrington director and CEO. “To ensure we were following best practices for collection stewardship, we made various technology upgrades to enhance the visitor experience of the artwork while remaining in line with the artist’s intent. This conservation work is part of our overall commitment to investing in the preservation of the iconic works in our collection, efforts also recently seen through the return of Julian Opie’s Julian and Suzanne Walking to the downtown Phoenix skyline and the refresh of Jurassic Age by Sui Jianguo at the museum’s main entrance off Central Avenue.”
Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama studied traditional Japanese painting before moving in 1958 to New York, where she created large-scale paintings with repeated motifs, crafted innovative sculptures from everyday materials, directed performative "Happenings" at notable landmarks and experimented with fashion and fiction. Her artworks challenged the male-dominated art world, protested war and integrated art into life.
From 1965, Kusama assembled light, sound and sculpture in mirrored rooms that suspend space and time. In her more recent works, the polka dots with which she covered paintings and bodies become dots of starlight in faraway galaxies or a swarm of luminescent fireflies on a summer evening, “obliterating” artist and audience.
Accompanying the museum’s re-installation of "You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies" is new interpretative text that allows visitors to connect the immersive work to the Japanese tradition of hotaru gari, when family and friends gather on early summer evenings to watch the luminous lights of fireflies. This tradition is also explored through woodblock prints and in Japanese literature, where fireflies symbolize love, beauty and the manifestation of the soul.
Guests will also discover how "You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies" references the Japanese tradition of toro nagashi, the floating lanterns that guide the soul to its resting place.
In celebration of the restored artwork, PhxArt will host a special Creative Saturday event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 9 with themed art-making activities and engagement experiences that will allow visitors to connect more deeply with the artwork. Programming is included with general admission and will feature:
- A fireflies-inspired scavenger hunt.
- A polka-dot pumpkin art activity.
- Dance performances by Movement Source.
- A mini infinity mirror room make-it station.
- Mix-and-match selfie booth with The Garment League.
- Lemon Art Research Library pop-up.
- A special art talk with Kusama scholar Midori Yamamura, Ph.D.
That same day, the museum will also unveil a new fall rotation of art of Asia installations, which will be on view in the Art of Asia Wing adjacent to Kusama’s infinity mirror room. "Scenes and Seasons in Japanese Art" presents two series of featured paintings, one from antiquity and one from modernity, that depict the festivals that mark the celebration of seasonal changes.
The display will also showcase lacquer artworks with motifs of birds and flowers and other scenes, such as gazing at the moon, writing poetry, dancing and visiting historic places, which all have seasonal associations in Japanese culture.
"Nature as Still Life in Chinese Painting" will showcase gifts from the Papp Family Foundation that present examples of the artistic study of nature’s microcosm, a practice that spans centuries. Featured works reflect the traditional Chinese appreciation for nature down to the smallest details, a practice based on the indigenous philosophy of Daoism, which views humankind as subservient to and in reverence of the perfect and imperfect beauty of the natural world.
The Phoenix Art Museum is located at 1625 N. Central Ave. in downtown Phoenix. For more information, visit phxart.org or call 602-257-1880.
