{"data":{"id":"19436","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":19436,"topgoose_id":11402,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":19436,"title":"Fireflies on the Water","display_artist_text":"Yayoi Kusama","display_date":"2002","accession_number":"2003.322","dimensions":"Overall: 111 × 144 1/2 × 144 1/2 in. (281.9 × 367 × 367 cm)","medium":"Mirrors, plexiglass, lights, and water","department":"collection","classification":"Installations","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Postwar Committee and the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and partial gift of Betsy Wittenborn Miller","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eYayoi Kusama, \u003cem\u003eFireflies on the Water\u003c/em\u003e, 2002. Mirrors, plexiglass, lights, and water, overall: 111 × 144 1/2 × 144 1/2 in. (281.9 × 367 × 367 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Postwar Committee and the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and partial gift of Betsy Wittenborn Miller 2003.322\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFireflies on the Water\u003c/i\u003e is a room-sized installation that is meant to be viewed in solitude, one person at a time. It consists of a small, darkened room lined with mirrors on all sides; a pool of water in the center of the space into which a dock-like viewing platform protrudes; and 150 small lights hanging from the ceiling. In tandem, these components create a dazzling effect of direct and reflected light, emanating from both the mirrors and the water’s surface. Space appears infinite, with no top or bottom, beginning or end. Like Yayoi Kusama’s earliest room-sized installations—including \u003ci\u003eInfinity Mirror Room\u003c/i\u003e (1965), in which she combined mirrors and her signature polka-dotted phallic protrusions in an enclosed chamber—\u003ci\u003eFireflies \u003c/i\u003eembodies an almost hallucinatory approach to reality. While related to the artist’s personal mythology and therapeutic working process, it also refers to sources as varied as the myth of Narcissus and Kusama’s native Japanese landscape.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Hundreds of small hanging lights reflected in a mirrored room creating an endless field of glowing points.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:41:14.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T06:00:18.057-04:00","images":[{"id":105119,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/19436/2003_322_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"735","type":"artist"}]}}}}