The Sprengel Museum in Hannover has opened its doors to what promises to be Lower Saxony's biggest art event of the year, featuring an unprecedented collaboration between three pop art legends. The exhibition "Love You for Infinity" brings together works by Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), Yayoi Kusama, and Takashi Murakami for the first time, displaying over 110 pieces across 2,000 square meters in twelve themed rooms. Expected to draw 200,000 visitors by the exhibition's end, the show reveals how these internationally acclaimed artists transformed personal trauma into universally resonant art.
Behind the vibrant surfaces that characterize all three artists' work lies a complex narrative of pain, healing, and artistic rebellion. Museum director Reinhard Spieler explains that despite the seemingly cheerful and positive appearance of their art, "existential themes are often hidden behind it - aggression, violence, death, fear. You can engage with such themes and still have fun." This simultaneous presence of trauma and joy, of darkness and pop culture aesthetics, makes the exhibition a particularly compelling artistic statement.
The meticulous preparation required for such a major exhibition becomes evident in the work of museum conservator Kristina Blaschke-Walther, who carefully inspects every mirror in Kusama's "Infinity Room" with her flashlight. "Three bottles of glass cleaner," she says with a smile, "that's all we need for infinity." The Infinity Room features walls lined with mirrors and colorful LED spheres, creating an immersive experience with pulsating light that requires constant maintenance to preserve its stunning visual effect.
Niki de Saint Phalle's connection to Hannover runs deep, dating back to 1974 when the city installed three monumental Nana sculptures along the Leine River. The installation sparked heated debates between supporters and opponents, with some viewing it as vandalism while others saw it as a breakthrough into a visionary future. The supporters ultimately prevailed, and Hannover gained three new landmarks. As Spieler notes, the city sometimes needs "a bit of a push from outside" to embrace "joie de vivre, color, and pop." In 2000, Saint Phalle donated more than 400 works to the Sprengel Museum, creating the world's largest collection of her art.
However, Saint Phalle's life was far from the colorful carefreeness her art might suggest. As a teenager, she endured years of sexual abuse by her own father, trauma that she processed through radical artistic expression. She literally shot at her paintings with rifles, causing paint bags to burst and artworks to "bleed." These "Shooting Pictures" (Tirs) from the early 1960s served as both liberation acts and feminist statements, critiquing what Spieler describes as "bourgeois art, which was naturally male-connoted at the time," decades before the MeToo movement became a global phenomenon.
Yayoi Kusama shares with Saint Phalle this transformation of traumatic experiences through art. The 96-year-old Japanese artist suffered from hallucinations as a child and was forced by her mother to spy on her unfaithful father and report back. This early instrumentalization profoundly shaped Kusama's entire body of work, leading to her signature obsessive "Polka-Dots" born from her hallucinations. For decades, she has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric clinic, from where she conquered the global art market. Her "Infinity Rooms" have become magnets for the social media generation, with Spieler describing the experience as being "right in the middle of this universe - there's no up, no down. You're completely weightless."
Takashi Murakami, born in 1962, completes this artistic trio with his unique approach to art as enterprise. The art history PhD runs his art like a business through Kaikai Kiki, which employs over 100 staff members and produces not only art but also films, fashion, and merchandise. In the early 2000s, he revolutionized Louis Vuitton's collection after more than 100 years of company history. His smiling emoji flowers now appear not only in museums but also adorn handbags and feature in American artists' music videos.
"Superflat" is what Murakami calls his philosophy - eliminating the separation between "high" and "low," between Far Eastern high art and Western commercialized consumer culture. Yet trauma lurks beneath his colorful surface as well. His mother came from Kokura, originally the target of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki instead. Stories of narrowly avoided annihilation permeate his work, and careful observers can often discover skulls hidden behind cheerful flowers.
What connects these three distinct artistic personalities is their ability to create immediately recognizable visual signatures. "Each has managed to create a key visual that you recognize immediately," analyzes Spieler. Nanas, dots, flowers - these are three unmistakable trademarks that became global icons. All three artists transform personal pain into universal art, demonstrating how the simultaneity of trauma and joy, of abyss and pop culture, creates compelling artistic experiences.
The enormous scale of the undertaking becomes clear in the exhibition setup details. Kusama's "Infinity Room" alone required 22 heavy crates for transport, while assembling one of Murakami's sculptures occupied 13 people for a day and a half. For conservator Blaschke-Walther, working so closely with such significant artworks represents a rare privilege in her professional career. The exhibition runs through the end of the planned period, offering visitors an unprecedented opportunity to experience how three masters of pop art have turned their deepest struggles into celebrations of human resilience and creativity.
