It’s tricky to show infinity and the reflection of mirrors in a computer rendering, but it is often the best shot we have to get an idea across. Case in point, the Whitney Museum’s recent and glamorous gala was all about the Museum’s past, present, and future -- conceptual ideas that we made materially tangible with light, reflection, and color. Inspired by the magical infinity boxes of the artist Yayoi Kusama, I wanted the guests to feel like they were dining within one of these optical works.
The dinner was held in the third floor galleries between exhibitions. To transform the gallery space, we first painted the walls a deep purple and hung floor to ceiling mirrors tinted in hues ranging from purple to smoky gray. Next we suspended hundreds of indigo bulbs from the ceiling in a perfect grid and created a floor plan that flowed perfectly, mixing rectangular and round dining tables in equal parts. Custom light boxes were created for each of the tables. Illuminated panels of the light box were upholstered with plastic slide protection sheets filled with squares of lighting gels and reflective papers instead of slides. The resulting effect was a deeply sexy supper club whose boundaries and points of light seemed to go on in glorious infinity.
Elated from a fantastic evening, Mr. Lauder, the Museum’s fairy godfather, apparently stated on his way home, “We don’t need a bigger Museum. We just need mirrors!”
Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirrored room, Love Forever (above), was constantly in my mind as we conceived and refined the design for the Whitney’s Gala. The piece is visually exciting, but is also the perfect marriage between the abstract concept of “infinity” and physical, sensual materiality – a pretty hard tightrope to walk.
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