For the first time in Italy, Yayoi Kusama's mirror room from the Whitney Museum will be in Bergamo

On the occasion of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023, the Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo will host Yayoi Kusama ’s (Matsumoto, Japan, 1929) exhibition Infinite Present from November 17, 2023 to January 14, 2024. And it will bring Fireflies on the Water, one of her most iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms from the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, to Italy for the first time.

“This is an ambitious and special exhibition,” says curator Stefano Raimondi, founder and director of The Blank Contemporary Art, “made possible by an articulated project, which took two years to complete, and by the international relationship with the Whitney Museum of American Art, undoubtedly one of the most important museums in the world.” “Yayoi Kusama,” Raimondi continues, "is an artist beloved across multiple generations and audiences, capable of wonder and amazement, and the room Fireflies on the Water is surely the most apt to underscore the themes that accompany Bergamo Brescia in the year of the Italian Capital of Culture, which address the themes of resilience, care, to finally open up to a new dimension full of light, energy and boundless possibilities."

“The presentation of this important exhibition,” emphasizes Giorgio Gori, mayor of Bergamo, “in a prestigious historical context of great value for the community such as Palazzo della Ragione, is an important signal for our city and for the entire contemporary art world in the year of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture.” “Bergamo has been working for a long time,” Gori continues, “thanks to the great work of The Blank, GAMeC and other relevant entities, to promote and enhance contemporary art in the city: the latter is central to the programming of the Capital 2023 project, thanks to the Kusama exhibition, the installations in Piazza della Libertà and KilometroRosso, but also to the construction site for the city’s new Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, a construction site that will begin precisely in 2023 in the city’s current sports hall.”

“The fact that an institution as important as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York,” comments Nadia Ghisalberti, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, “grants a loan of this importance, conveys the value of the path that Bergamo has been following for several years in the field of contemporary art and, at the same time, of the path taken by The Blank, a reality of the territory that has become a credible and internationally known cultural interlocutor and an actor capable of promoting the city and the community.”

The installation, curated by Maria Marzia Minelli, consists of an introductory path that delves into Yayoi Kusama’s research through poems, films and documentation, creating a space for physical and digital sharing of the lived experience and offering the opportunity to enter from multiple points of view into the imagery of the famous Japanese artist.

At the center of the Fireflies on the Water will be a room-sized installation designed to be viewed in solitude, one person at a time. The work consists of a dark room lined with mirrors on all sides; in the center of the room is a pool of water, meant to convey a sense of stillness, into which protrudes a pier-like viewing platform and 150 small lights hanging from the ceiling that, as the title suggests, look like fireflies.

These elements create a dazzling effect of direct and reflected light, emanating from both the mirrors and the surface of the water. The space appears infinite, without beginning or end. As in Yayoi Kusama’s early installations, includingInfinity Mirror Room (1965), Fireflies on the Water embodies an almost hallucinatory approach to reality. Although related to the artist’s personal mythology and the process of therapeutic work, this work also refers to sources as varied as the myth of Narcissus and Kusama’s native Japanese landscape.

The environment that welcomes the installation is muffled in lights and sounds, and the arrival at the threshold of the room is meant to be a meditative act, a contemplation that can take the audience to another and different dimension; an invitation to abandon the sense of self and surrender to a kind of meditative magic.

An extensive program of workshops designed by The Blank’s educational services for schools and families will take place during the exhibition. Yayoi Kusama. Infinite Present is also fully accessible to the hearing-impaired through guided tours in LIS - Sign Language.

The initiative, curated by Stefano Raimondi, is promoted by The Blank Contemporary Art and the Municipality of Bergamo as part of a three-year cultural agreement aimed at enhancing the association’s activities and can already count on the involvement of important local entities such as MAGRIS S.p.A. and ArtCare s.r.l.

The exhibition is part of the program of the ARTDATE Contemporary Art Festival, organized by The Blank and Palazzo Monti from November 9 to 26 in the cities of Bergamo and Brescia.

More information and pre-sale details at www.theblank.it

For the first time in Italy, Yayoi Kusama's mirror room from the Whitney Museum will be in Bergamo

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