Yayoi Kusama, With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever, 2011. Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life, David Zwirner, New York, 2017. (Yayoi Kusama. Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York; Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London; YAYOI KUSAMA Inc.)Walking through the infinity rooms, I was reminded of a question posed by the 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal: "What is man in the infinite?" Pascal was also interested in duality, and wrote extensively about the two sides of infinity: the infinitely large — that which expands outward forever, as in outer space; and the infinitely small — that which becomes increasingly complex as it turns inward (think of how living organisms house innumerable cells).Pascal writes that humans flicker between being subsumed in unconscious existence and observing existence consciously from the outside; in other words, the states of being and observing are separate, opposed.Kusama, on the other hand, juxtaposes these two states of infinity — the outward and the inward — to demonstrate how they merge: as one must be to observe, observation is simply a result of being. It is a creative, dynamic, ever-evolving process.And such is the immersive experience of a Kusama show. These electric, mind-bending pieces seem to gleefully answer Pascal's question: Infinity and its duality exist within human experience.**Yayoi Kusama's Festival of Life (at 525 & 533 West 19th St.) and Infinity Nets (at 34 East 69th St.) are on view at the David Zwirner galleries in New York City from Nov. 2 until Dec. 16, 2017. Read more about the exhibitions at DavidZwirner.com.**
