Fireflies On The Water...

Last Saturday Abi went along to the Met to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, and on Sunday she took me back to see it too...

I'd never been to the Met before and Abi had wanted to go for a while, so it was lovely that we both go to go. We got up early to beat the queues and arrived before it opened (although there was still a pretty hefty queue!). The reason we wanted to get there early was to ensure a chance to see the Fireflies On The Water piece, but more on that in a bit...

The lobby of the Met was pretty impressive – well, the lights were, the walls are just boring concrete (probably from the brutalist movement - I learned that in Chicago!), but the lights were great, and there were some huge spotty inflatable balls hanging above the cafe which were pretty brilliant too...

We had a look round on every floor, there were some really great pieces, and a lot of questionable ones too - but mainly good stuff. One of my favourite pieces was an envelope with a scribbled plan by Jasper Johns on the back, it was a scribbled idea for his 3 Flags piece that's in the MoMA. It's amazing to see the first conception of the idea, and then be able to see the finished thing.

A lot of Yayoi Kusama was a bit hypnotic, lots of repetition, lots of tiny elements that she painstakingly painted - it made us quite dizzy looking at them, and it's no wonder Kusama ended up in a loony bin. However, the main attraction for the whole exhibition, and the piece that sells out each day - hence the queues and hence us getting up early and not having any eggs that morning, was the Fireflies On The Water.

It was a special room that only one person was allowed into at any one time, and each person was only allowed in for 1 minute to ensure that as many people as possible could experience it in the time the gallery's open. So when you buy your Met ticket you are also appointed a time to go and see the Fireflies room... and then queue for another 20 minutes, while 20 people go in and out of the room.

The early start, the queueing, the lack of eggs and bacon, the waiting and the more queueing was well, well, WELL worth it, once we got inside the room though, because it looked like this...

 The walls were all mirrored, creating an infinite amount of little lights, and the thin layer of water on the floor reflected the lights in the mirrored ceiling. It was absolutely stunning.

You walked through the door onto a little platform above the water and just had a minute of absolute silence in the magical hypnotic room of lights... it was quite a surreal experience, it was like being in a huge orchard of lights or something, there little fireflies went on forever!

It was one of the most beautiful pieces of art I've ever seen/walked in... it was amazing. I wish we could go back without all the queueing, and spend longer than a minute in there, but it was a perfect minute.

I was very glad Miss Turner made us get up so early on a Sunday.