Narcissus Garden
Narcissus Garden. Yayoi Kusama. Original installation and performance. 1966. Mirror balls. Kusama is a self-taught artist who now chooses to live in a private Tokyo mental health facility, while prolifically producing art in various media in her studio nearby. Her highly constructed persona and self-proclaimed life-long history of insanity have been the subject of scrutiny and critiques for decades. The tightly arranged 1,500 shimmering balls constructed an infinite reflective field in which the images of the artist, the visitors, the architecture, and the landscape were repeated, distorted, and projected by the convex mirror surfaces that produced virtual images appearing closer and smaller than reality. When gazing into it, the viewer only saw his/her own reflection staring back, forcing a confrontation with one's own vanity and ego. Originally intended as the media for an interactive performance between the artist and the viewer, the objects are now regarded ...