Infinity Mirrored Room – Phalli's Field

Yayoi Kusama made "Infinity Mirrored Room – Phalli's Field" in 1965. This was her first installation with mirrors. The work is a 25-square-meter room. It has mirrors on the walls. It contains hundreds of soft, stuffed phallic shapes. These shapes have red polka dots on them. The mirrors make the shapes look endless. This creates a space where viewers see their own bodies and images many times.

This important work came from Kusama's earlier work. She explored infinity and repetition in her big "Infinity Net" paintings. She also made installations with repeated patterns like polka dots and phallic forms. She created this piece in New York. This was an important time in Kusama's career. The work showed her new way of making art that mixes artwork, space, and viewer together. It helped her make more mirror installations later. One example is "Peep Show or Endless Love Show" (1966). This work used mirrors and light in new ways.

"A mirrored hexagonal room with coloured lights that flashed in time to piped-in rock and roll, Peep Show, like its bawdy namesake, was experienced by viewers through slots located at eye level," writes Taft. "In an onanistic twist, rather than ogling an anonymous ‘star’ on the Peep Show’s stage, the only image one saw was one’s own – reflected ad infinitum in the mirrored walls, surrounded by blinking lights, for all the world like a kinetic marquee."

References:

https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2017/october/19/when-yayoi-kusama-created-her-first-ever-infinity-room/