Ron Mueck’s sculptures for Kusama’s “Infinity Mirror Room”

It was late morning when I entered the idyllic landscape of the Museum Voorlinden with my almost two-and-a-half-year-old. I had mistakenly assumed that late June was summer in the Netherlands, so we were not dressed appropriately. It was an overcast day with the sun only occasionally shining through, like a celebrity host who pops in now and then at his own dinner party just to make sure his guests are there. The museum grounds were sprawling with not only manicured lawns, but also pastures for grazing cows, waters covered in lotus flowers, and rolling dune meadows. It was unlike any other museum I had visited. The main building even had glass walls, so you could often see visitors looking at the artwork.

I immersed myself in the porous environment while looking at Jan Fabre’s bronze sculpture The man who misses the clouds (1998). I placed our picnic blanket near this sculpture of a man standing on a small ladder holding up a large ruler, his head pointed toward the sky. I later read that the work alludes to the desire of the infamous, imprisoned “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Robert Stroud, to “measure the clouds,” should he ever be released. The work looked dramatic against the overcast, often sunless Dutch sky. It seemed so much about the specificity of perspective, about the fact that anything this inanimate sculpture could record through its measuring device would only be valid for its particular location. From where I was sitting, the same cloud would appear differently sized. Measuring clouds means coming to terms with their instability and transience, the lack of clear corners or contours. It is an inherently non-essential activity, like creating art, whose source of pleasure is primarily self-determined, making an audience secondary, even irrelevant. The abundance of clouds meant that Skyspace (2016), designed by James Turrell especially for Museum Voorlinden, was in light program mode by default. Instead of seeing the open sky through a rectangular slit, we experienced the gradually changing spectrum of colored lighting, a delight for my little one who can now recognize colors well. We bathed in the programmed light.

By now I was starting to feel a little more comfortable. I am not used to visiting museums alone with a toddler who shows his love for nature very clearly. My reason for visiting was to visit Bhasha Chakraborti, who was living at the Ekard Residency with Hania Mariam Luthufi at the time. It was indeed a pity to be so close to so many excellent museums with a toddler who would much rather travel by trains, trams, cars and buses. The day before, however, I had had great success at the Children’s Book Museum in The Hague, which is undoubtedly one of the best museums in the world for its loving care of children of all ages and for bringing to life the worlds they know from storybooks. Why couldn’t art museums also include games in their exhibitions? I dreamed of a world where the art critic mother could be more easily rehabilitated as a viewer.

I had read about a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room that you could easily go in without having to book a place in advance. Thanks to my inability to follow instructions before we arrived at Infinity Mirror Room we have seen some playful works that stimulate the senses, including Swimming pool (2016) by Leandro Erlich. The water shimmered an inviting blue. It was, however, a mirage. A nearby staircase led to the bottom of the pool, where it became clear that the water’s surface was a glass illusion. Visitors could be seen mimicking the act of swimming, pretending to be submerged or floating. I was pleased that my toddler’s curiosity was piqued, but I was unconvinced of the work’s conceptual value. It seemed clever and expertly made, much like all of Ron Mueck’s oversized realist sculptures of white people. There is a certain tenderness to the process, but the works rely on the spectacle of size. You, the viewer, are made smaller by the work.

Richard Serra’s sculpture made of Corten steel Open ending (2007-08) was similar in size, but seemed to transcend the space. It weighs 216 tons, is four meters high, 18 meters long and seven meters wide and consists of six curved steel plates that were formed into a labyrinth. As with Erlich’s Swimming poolthe physical act of navigating the work activates its dimensions. At first the sculpture appears as two crooked curves, but as you let your gaze wander steadily through the narrow corridors, you feel as if you lose your bearings for a moment. The space seems to expand while it contracts. You are simultaneously lost and found.

Although they are also massive in scale, Roni Horn’s magnificent cylindrical sculptures (2012-13) seem more mystical than any other work on display. Each of the five sculptures, made from fine sand from northern Norway and reportedly never contaminated with plastic or glass, weighs 4,500 kilos. Yet they appear astonishingly translucent, as if they could float at any moment. Each is a different pastel shade and appears voluminous, their surfaces seductively glazed. I would have loved to be swallowed up by these works, but I could see my toddler struggling to resist the temptation to touch what he was so obviously in awe of. When I later discovered the title of the work, I was sure it perfectly embodied my state at that moment –Untitled (“The immense accumulation of flesh which had come upon her in mid-life like a flood of lava upon a doomed city had transformed her from a plump, active little woman… into something as vast and sublime as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this immersion as philosophically as all her other trials, and was now, in old age, rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost wrinkle-free expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face remained, as if waiting to be dug out.”).

Although finally on the way to Infinity Mirror RoomI had to visit Maurizio Cattelan’s Untitled (2001), the opposite of life-sized. My toddler crawled on the floor to get a better look at the built-in mini elevators that seemed to go up and down, with the doors occasionally opening and closing without anyone or an imaginary mouse, so we concluded. I had to tear him away from this piece so we could get to the Infinity Mirror Room before hunger could set. One person was ahead of us. The guard set a timer before letting anyone in. Soon it was our turn, and we had about 30 seconds to soak up the play of ever-changing lights endlessly reflected in mirrored glass and water. Of course, we quickly snapped a selfie. But we were back out before we knew it. I still wonder if the work works because of the feeling that time is not enough. Just when you feel like you’re on the verge of a revelation, a knock on the door tells you it’s time to leave. It’s as if time is pitted against the perception of infinity. Does the work work because you spend more time waiting to get in than once you’re inside? My toddler kept wanting to go in, but I felt it was important to maintain the sanctity of the brevity of the allotted time. I left the museum feeling triumphant about all that I had actually seen.