A range of domestic items most of us take for granted are getting the whitewash treatment at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Gallery director Cam McCracken tells Rebecca Fox about ‘‘The Obliteration Room''.
A sterile, white living area will be transformed into a colourful, dotted, eye-popping environment by the Dunedin public this month. Leading contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's ‘‘Obliteration Room'' is being re-created at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Kusama, a painter, sculptor and novelist, is known for her trademark polka dots, which had their origins in her childhood when she started seeing the worldthrough a screen of dots. They covered everything she saw so she used them in her artwork to cover many different surfaces.
She calls the process ‘‘obliteration'', hence the name of the interactive installation where she invites people to use colourful dot stickers to cover every surface of a room.
DPAG has borrowed the work from the Queensland Art Gallery.
‘‘It's nice to be able to bring work of this calibre and significance to Dunedin.''
Kusama, who is in her late 80s, is a world-renowned artist who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he said.
She moved to New York where she became involved in the counter-culture movement alongside other major artists such as Andy Warhol.
‘‘She enjoyed a lot of success at that time.''
In the early 1970s, she returned to Japan where she set up a studio in Tokyo and continued to make art.
She is considered a national treasure in Japan, being honoured as Person of Cultural Merits in 2009 and has exhibited solo shows in some of the top galleries around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum in New York, LeConsortium in France and Wellington's City Gallery.
In 2004, her solo exhibition KUSAMATRIX, which was first exhibited in Tokyo, drew 520,000 visitors.
The ‘‘Obliteration Room'' was developed by Kusama for the Queensland Art Gallery's fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2002 and was againstaged at the gallery in 2014 alongside a modern Japanese art exhibition.
Mr McCracken said the installation was very engaging and would enable gallery visitors to participate.
‘‘It has a sense of playfulness and fun. I think it will engage people on a level that will be really fun.''
New Zealand domestic items were being used in the ‘‘living area'' that the audience would recognise.
‘‘We've purchased a whole lot of items that have been turned white ready for the opening.''
As the Dunedin public would be adding the dots where they saw fit, it would create a unique ‘‘Obliteration Room'' not seen anywhere else.
The gallery was collaborating closely with the Queensland gallery and the Kusama studio in Japan to ensure the installation was re-created to the artist's standards.
‘‘We want to ensure she is happy with how it looks in New Zealand.''
It had also ordered hundreds of multicoloured dots for gallery visitors to ‘‘obliterate'' the white environment with and would be recording the ‘‘progress'' of the room's obliteration.
‘‘I think it will capture people's imagination and they'll be able to come back and see the work as it grows and more colours are added.''
A fun day will be held at the gallery on Saturday for children and their families.
Taiko Japanese drummers would open the event and there would be spot prizes for the ‘‘dottiest'' outfits.
To see
The Obliteration Room, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, from May 7 until August 7
Family fun day, 11am-4pm on May 7
Yayoi Kusama talk by College of Education Associate Prof David Bell at 3pm on May 15
