"—so three dots each, and we would ask mourners not to hoard," said the queue coordinator for the International Council of Mirrored Rooms, briefing reporters in Tokyo on Sunday. "The reserve is finite. Grief, unfortunately, is not."
Yayoi Kusama died in a Tokyo hospital on 14 August, aged 97. Her company announced it this week. Within hours, institutions on three continents had bolted turnstiles to their infinity rooms and begun handing out adhesive circles at the door, one sheet per household.
"We have modelled the demand. The dots run out before the feelings do."
London queued in this exact shape in 1972, for a dead boy's gold mask, and shuffled forward at the same speed. Paris has been doing it for a small portrait for rather longer. Anyone who stood behind a rope in Rome in 2005 will recognise the stanchions, the volunteers, the man selling water at four times the price.
The council says the rooms will stay open indefinitely, with visits capped at 30 seconds so that everyone gets their turn at infinity.
