4th Annual Collectors’ Contemporary Collaboration: Intimate Curiosity

Another work in the exhibition by Kusama is Infinity Mirrored Room—Love Forever (No.3) (1964–86), a curious, cubic installation covered entirely in silver phallic protrusions, which sits atop a mirror-paneled pedestal. Upon closer examination of one side of the bulbous box, viewers will find a small window that allows a look inside—where mirror-like interior walls surround a heard of small, red-and-white striped protrusions that fill the bottom surface. As the work’s title implies, the mirror-on-mirror composition creates an enigmatic illusion wherein the interior space, and hence the phallic growths, appear to multiple and recede infinitely into the abyss. 

Fantastical explorations of sexual motifs are further seen in a video by Thai artist Boonsri Tangtrongsin, entitled Superbarbara Saving the World (2012–13). The black-and-white animation is a compilation of 12 short episodes that each features a different misadventure involving an animate blow-up doll named Superbarbara, who tries to “save the world” through earnest yet comically perverse ways, and a gang of mischievous crows who foil her every attempt. In a particularly dark and delightful episode, Superbarbara is shown comforting a crying baby—the twist being that the latter is actually a small, middle-aged man in a suit, lying inside a carriage. The scene starts out with Superbarabara deflated on the ground, connected to an air pump, and the man-baby crying in his stroller nearby. A crow jumps onto the pump to inflate Superbarabara, making the man-baby giggle grotesquely with joy. Immediately the crow jumps off the pump, and Superbarabara falls down, throwing the man-baby into a tantrum. Then the crow jumps back onto the pump and the man-baby is happy to see the re-inflated Superbarabara, and the same sequence is repeated again and again in a hypnotic loop until the scene fades and the next episode begins. Superbarabara’s Sisyphean attempts seem to be a sardonic commentary on the cycle of corruption and hypocrisy that often hinder people and nations, but also at times humanitarian charities and organizations, from “saving the world.”