Kusama’s Mirror Rooms return to Chicago: “Inner Worlds” opens at Wrightwood 659 with Saint Phalle and Bauermeister

Wrightwood 659, the small art museum in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, opened two new exhibitions today that will run through December 19. The most important is called “Inner Worlds: Visions from the Hirshhorn Collection” and brings together three pioneering 20th-century artists — Yayoi Kusama, Niki de Saint Phalle and Mary Bauermeister — who built careers in a male-dominated art world.

The star of the exhibition is Kusama, represented by two “Infinity Mirror Rooms” — including the very first she created, in 1965 — as well as a large pumpkin sculpture, a key motif of her work. With the WNDR Museum in Chicago closing this month, this is the only opportunity in the city to enter the endless universes of the Japanese artist. Bauermeister is exhibited with her optical boxes, where the viewer looks through a lens, while Saint Phalle brings her well-known sculptural energy.

The exhibition was curated by Betsy Johnson of the Hirshhorn museum (Smithsonian) and marks the third collaboration between Wrightwood 659 and the Hirshhorn. According to the museum’s staff, “Inner Worlds” has drawn more anticipation than any other exhibition in Wrightwood 659’s history, as WBEZ reports.

The opening comes just over a month after Kusama’s death in August, at the age of 97. Her 2017 tour, “Infinity Mirrors,” broke attendance records in North America, while she developed the mirror rooms over the decades — from the first experiment in 1965 to later installations.

Alongside it opens “Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War,” an immersive video installation by the Taiwanese artist, adapted from his participation in the 2024 Venice Biennale.