III. C. Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room

Obliteration as liberation

Yayoi Kusama was born in Japan 1929 (Grant, 2009). Despite Japan being a country of origin, she rejects her associations to its art scene and influences. Instead, she gives credit to America for forming her identity as and artist (Pilling, 2012). Kusama lived in New York for more than 15 years, and in that time her works were compared with those of Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and Roy Liechtenstein.
Kusama's work is in its essence the artist's response to an on going mental in illness, which has affected her life since childhood (Greer, 2009). Nearly all her works feature masses of polka dots, which according to her represent visions and hallucinations she has. The dots also represent her way of dealing with the anxieties she experiences owing to her mental state (Pilling, 2012). “I make them and make them and then keep on making them, until I bury myself in the process. I call this process ‘obliteration’”.

The Obliteration Room

The Obliteration Room 2011 is a large-scale recreation of the artist’s work for the Kid’s portion of the Asia Pacific Triennial of contemporary art 2002 (Visualarts.qld.gov.au, 2002). For the second iteration of this piece, Kusama has set up a typical Australian domestic environment (Ellwood, 2011) inside the Gallery of modern Art, Brisbane (the Guardian, 2012). What sets this pseudo-room apart is the way Kusama had it set up.

‘At the start of the project, this room was completely white – white ceiling, white floor, white walls, white furniture.  People come in, they are given a sheet of coloured stickers in different sizes, which have been produced specially for the project and in accordance with the artist’s specifications; her choice of colour, her choice of finish, and her choice of size.  And then everybody is invited to place the stickers anywhere they like in the room, according to any pattern, any idea they have, anything they like they can do with the stickers.’ (Tate.org.uk, 2012)

The installation was principally aimed at children (Jobson, 2012), but it ended up seeing many adult contributors (the Guardian, 2012). Kusama has incorporated the crowd in some of her previous works (Ellwood, 2012). Yet, the obliteration room is a first work in which she invited the crowd to actively produce her ‘trademark’ polka dots.

Legacy

Yayoi Kusama is very concerned with her legacy and in a recent interview she expressed the hope that this legacy will be the pursuit of an end to war and appreciation of life (Pilling, 2012). It seems rather fitting then, that in this state of her life she makes work that enables a young generation to become creative and engage with her work without her physical presence being a necessity.