Here she experimented with different movements, from pop art to the hippie counterculture. Following an abusive childhood, she studied the Japanese art of Nihonga painting in Kyoto before moving to New York in 1957. Her work, deeply rooted in the artist’s own fears and troubled past, is edgy and obsessive, with dots as a reoccurring motif. Yayoi Kusama (born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan) is one of the most influential art figures of the past century, inspiring personalities such as Andy Warhol or Yoko Ono, among other artists, fashion designers, filmmakers or architects. Looking back at her biography and past works could offer a deeper understanding of her obsessive art. It is a fun project, but one that is based on the artist’s troubled childhood, that has more in that one can imagine. The white room works as a canvas for visitors – its furniture and details blend in together as colorful dots take over. ‘The Obliteration Room’ was fist displayed at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002, as an art project for children, and in 2012, it was presented at Tate Modern.

What’s more is that visitors can contribute to the piece, in a participatory process. A particular piece was “The Obliteration Room” (2002 – present) that has more than what its looks convey. Looking like a typical American house in the exterior, with generic furniture and fittings in the interior, it captures the visitor with a vivid comostion: all is white, waiting to be covered in colorful dot stickers.

This current installation coincides with ‘ Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow‘ on show until Sunday 11 February 2018.New York’s David Zwirner art gallery was recently host to the ‘Give Me Love’ installation – a collection by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc / Photographs: Natasha Harth © QAGOMAĭelve deeper into Yayoi Kusama’s world QAGOMA’s The obliteration room revisits the popular interactive children’s project developed by Kusama for the Gallery’s fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2002. Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © Yayoi Kusama. Commissioned Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Yayoi Kusama, Japan b.1929 / The obliteration room 2002 to present (Installation view GOMA 2017-18) / Furniture, white paint, dot stickers / Collaboration between Yayoi Kusama and Queensland Art Gallery. In her artwork, Kusama uses dots, she calls this process ‘obliteration’ – the complete destruction of every trace of something. Why dots? When Kusama was young, she started seeing the world through a screen of dots, they covered everything she saw – even her own body. The obliteration room 2002 to present is transformed over time as dots accumulate in the space, so enter the world of leading contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama before it closes on Sunday 4 February, add your colourful dot stickers to a range of white furniture and surfaces and help ‘obliterate’ our domestic space. We can’t believe our interactive installation once was pristine white when it opened in October 2017.

Kusama obliteration room