Walking into one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms is like walking into a completely different universe. The door shuts behind you, and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by what appears to be a galaxy of shimmering LEDs. The scene is beautiful, in a surreal, space-age fairy tale sort of way.
But it’s also a little jarring in its intimacy; it’s almost as though you’ve been instantly transported from a whitewashed gallery into Kusama’s buzzing, obsessive mind.
It’s a strange place to inhabit, if only because you get the sense that what goes on inside Kusama’s mind is very different than what’s happening inside, say, your neighbor’s, or your colleague’s. The Japanese artist has lived in a Japanese mental institution since the 1970s, when she checked herself in after a particularly stressful stint in New York City.
But Kusama’s struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder and other mental anguishes is not a shameful secret. In fact, it’s the opposite…
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Persona 