#InfiniteKusama goes on sale to AGO Members on December 12 and to the public on January 16; don’t miss your chance to get the year’s hottest ticket
TORONTO – This March the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) presents the phenomenon that has been winning rave reviews from audiences and selling out museums across the United States. Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, the first survey exhibition to explore the evolution of the celebrated Japanese artist’s immersive infinity rooms, opens a 3-month run at the AGO on March 3, 2018. After runaway successes in Washington, Seattle, and Los Angeles and in response to high demand, the Gallery will put a limited number of exhibition tickets on sale to AGO Members on Dec. 12, 2017 and to the public on Jan. 16, 2018.
The Toronto stop of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors promises to be the city’s biggest art event of the year. Tickets will be available for sale online only through www.ago.ca. AGO Members will have an exclusive first opportunity to book tickets before the general public on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017 at 12 p.m. The first opportunity to purchase tickets for the general public will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018 at 12 p.m. Due to the unique nature of the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors experience, all tickets will be sold in specific time slots. There are no refunds or exchanges of tickets for this exhibition.
Admission is free for AGO Members, but tickets are not guaranteed. Members must book early to avoid disappointment. General public tickets are $21.50 for post-secondary students and youth ages 17 and under, $26.50 for seniors and $30 for adults.
To stay tuned for more updates regarding Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors and to hear about future ticket-buying opportunities, sign up for news alerts on AGO.ca and follow the hashtag #InfiniteKusama. The website also features tips for planning a visit and making the most of the experience.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is the biggest North American tour of Yayoi Kusama’s work in nearly two decades. Providing visitors with the unique opportunity to experience six of Kusama’s most iconic kaleidoscopic environments at once, it features large-scale, whimsical installations and key paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the early 1950s to the present. The exhibition also marks the North American debut of numerous new works by the 88-year-old artist, who is still actively making work in her Tokyo studio. These include vibrantly colored paintings and sculptures as well as her most recent infinity room, All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins (2016), featuring dozens of her signature bright yellow, dotted pumpkins.
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is curated by Hirshhorn Curator Mika Yoshitake.
The AGO’s installation is coordinated by Adelina Vlas, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art. More details will be announced as they become available.
ABOUT YAYOI KUSAMA
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Nagano, in 1929, and currently lives and works Tokyo. She studied traditional Nihonga (Japanese-style) painting in Kyoto and moved to New York City in 1958. There she was active in avant-garde circles during the formative years of pop art and minimalism, exhibiting her work alongside such artists as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow – figures who have cited Kusama as influential to the development of assemblage, environmental art and performative practices. Kusama exhibited widely in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands in the mid-1960s, participating in exhibitions with artists associated with Nul, Zero and the New Tendency movements. In this context she began developing her interest in the optics and interactive elements of mirrors, electric lights, sound and kinetics. Her visibility grew in the late 1960s through her radical anti-war happenings, which put nudity and polka dots into the streets of New York. Due to ongoing struggles with her health, Kusama returned to Japan in 1973, where she has since resided. In recent years, she has achieved celebrity status and more importantly tremendous critical respect for her artistic contributions.
ABOUT THE AGO
Located in Toronto, Canada’s largest city of 6.5 million, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is one of the largest art museums in North America. The AGO’s collection of close to 95,000 works ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art such as Untilled by Pierre Huyghe to European masterpieces such as Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of The Innocents; from the vast collection by the Group of Seven to works by established and emerging Indigenous Canadian artists; with a photography collection that tracks the impact of the medium with deep holdings of works by artists such as Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus; and with focused collections in Gothic boxwood miniatures and Western and Central African art. Drawing on this collection—as well as collaborations with museums around the world—the AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, taking special care to showcase diverse and underrepresented artists. A major expansion designed by Frank Gehry in 2008 with lead support from the family of Ken Thomson makes the AGO a highly-photographed architectural landmark. Visit ago.ca to learn more.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts and generous contributions from AGO members, donors and private-sector partners.
The AGO is grateful for support from:
Supporting Sponsor Shiseido
Generous supporters Hal Jackman Foundation
The Japan Foundation
The Schulich Foundation
Promotional Partner Japan National Tourism Organization
Organizing Partner Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
-30-
For press inquiries, please contact:
Carly Maga, Communications Officer
Samantha Chater, Communications Officer