User:Audreyj0/sandbox

Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist, set up a solo exhibition ,The Obliteration Room, at the Tate Modern in London in 2012. The exhibition is set up as a fully furnished living area, equipped with two couches, a coffee table, piano, dining room table, chandeliers, and even plants, all completely matt white. The exhibition went on for roughly two weeks and was an audience interactive piece. Museum goers were handed a sheet of stickers that had different size and colors of dots (orange, yellow, pink, red, green, red), and they were asked to place the stickers where ever they please, letting their imagination run wild. Progressively over the days the room became vibrant and full of colors with stickers on the floor, ceiling, coffee cups, and every key on the piano where children would sit and play. Once it was towards the end of the two weeks the room was so “obliterated” that your vision would blur to even stare at something too long, which initiates the purpose of this piece.

Biography
Yayoi Kusama was born in Nagano, Japan, evolving into an avant-garde, surrealist painter and novelist. She has and continues to suffer from emotional and mental problems where she knew she voluntarily checked her self into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo after living in New York for 20 years. At a young age, Kusama was in her home at the dining room table, dazing off and staring at her floral table cloth. After staring for too long, Kusama looked upwards and the sunlight caught her eye and as her vision was trying to clear, her sight was overcome with dots, in almost a mesmerizing fashion. Since then she has been inspired by that event in which polka dots have became her trademark. She left her mental institution recently and worked with Louis Vuitton with a new collection of hand bags, all equipped with polka dots, also creating an awe inspiring window display in New York City, of large swirling polka dots.