{"id":2454612,"date":"2020-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=320922"},"modified":"2020-02-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T07:00:00","slug":"yayoi-kusamas-infinity-mirror-room-closing-early-at-aspen-art-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/yayoi-kusamas-infinity-mirror-room-closing-early-at-aspen-art-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Yayoi Kusama\u2019s infinity Mirror Room closing early at Aspen Art Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
People gathered on the opening night of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room, “Where the Lights in My Heart Go,” on Dec. 21. The installtion will close on Feb. 23.<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Aspen Art Museum will close its Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room <\/a>11 weeks early due to a building code violation that arose from the installation blocking elevator access.<\/p>\n

The last day of the exhibition in the museum\u2019s second-floor corridor will be Feb. 23. Museum and city of Aspen officials have been working together on resolving the code issue since early January, and decided last week to close it ahead of its planned May 10 end date.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the determination of both parties that fulfilling the artwork\u2019s need for natural light and appropriate space and code requirements cannot be achieved equitably within the museum\u2019s layout at this time,\u201d reads a statement prepared by the museum.<\/p>\n

The much-hyped Aspen installation brought the global art and social media sensation of Kusama\u2019s Infinity Mirror Rooms to the museum. An estimated 5,000-plus visitors have gone inside the immersive work, titled \u201cWhere the Lights in My Heart Go,\u201d since it opened to the public Dec. 19<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The box measures just under 10 feet high and wide. Its reflective stainless steel exterior and mirrored interior walls are punctured with small holes that let light in to create Kusama\u2019s signature optical effect. While the viewer is inside \u2014 an experience limited to 90 seconds \u2014 the light reflections cause the illusion of floating in an infinite celestial space.<\/p>\n

Installed on the north end of the museum\u2019s second-floor corridor, the artwork blocks the entrance to the museum\u2019s elevator. Since the Kusama opening, museum staff has used its freight elevator for handicapped access to the second floor.<\/p>\n

Soon after the art opening, a city building department staffer noted the location blocking the only public entrance to the museum\u2019s elevator on the second floor, said city chief building official Mike Metheny.<\/p>\n

The blockage is in violation of the International Building Code, to which the city of Aspen adheres. Under the code, the elevator must be accessible and the area in front of its entrance must be clear.<\/p>\n

City building officials turned to the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, which oversees elevator inspection and permitting for the region, to learn whether using the freight elevator was a legal resolution. Council determined it was not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AAM regrets any inconvenience resulting from its early closure,\u201d the museum statement says.<\/p>\n

When the Kusama installation was announced last year, it was expected to be installed in the museum\u2019s open-air rooftop sculpture garden. The piece had previously been exhibited outdoors, including at the deCordova Sculpture Park in Massachusetts. However, late concerns arose about doing so in the high alpine climate in wintertime. The semi-enclosed portion of the rooftop space was not a viable alternative, as Kusama\u2019s United Kingdom-based installation team found the box would not fit under the trusses of the ceiling there.<\/p>\n

Museum officials decided to install it in the second-floor corridor in early December, said museum chief operating officer Luis Yllanes.<\/p>\n

Metheny said the museum has appropriately addressed the issue since it came to their attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been nothing but responsive and professional in their handling of the situation,\u201d Metheny said. \u201cThe museum and the city worked very well together and were able to reach a resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kusama, 90, has been making variations of her mirror rooms since the 1960s, but they\u2019ve become a worldwide phenomenon through Instagram in recent years as visitors have sought selfies inside of Kusama\u2019s creations. The New York Times, in November, called Kusama\u2019s rooms<\/a> \u201cthe art world\u2019s equivalent of Star Wars premieres.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans have waited in hours-long lines to experience Infinity Rooms in major cities like New York and Los Angeles. At the Aspen Art Museum, wait times never stretched that long, though \u201cWhere the Lights in My Heart Go\u201d drew steady and enthusiastic crowds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased to have shared \u2018Where the Lights in My Heart Go\u2019 with well-over 5,000 AAM visitors since December 2019,\u201d the museum statement reads, \u201cgrateful to the city of Aspen for their professionalism in working with us to reach this decision, and thankful to our AAM visitors for their ongoing support.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People gathered on the opening night of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room, “Where the Lights in My Heart Go,” on Dec. 21. The installtion will close on Feb. 23.Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times The Aspen Art Museum will close its Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room 11 weeks early due to a building code violation that arose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2454612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 15:15:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}