Brisbane curator Jay Younger recently unveiled what may be Yayoi Kusama’s largest public artworks yet. Jenna Reed Burns reports.
December 12th, 2012
Yayoi Kusama‘s ‘Eyes are Singing Out’ is a mural that extends the length of a city block (90 metres) outside the new Supreme and District court building in Brisbane.
Image © John Gollings
It’s already become a destination artwork as it is Kusama’s only permanent artwork on show in Australia and, says curator Jay Younger, it may even be her largest permanent artwork in the world.
Yayoi Kusama
Jenna Reed Burns asked her to expand on why she feels art is integral to architecture.
As a curator and an artist yourself how important is the integration of art and design into architecture?
I think both help the other. What is interesting about the courthouse is that the design director Dr John Hockings of Architectus loves the artwork and sees it as a positive addition to the building. These three artists would never had had this opportunity without the building. Public art provides artists with a professional and creative development opportunity, and it provides the public with a way of seeing art which is really quite different from seeing it in a traditional gallery context.
Image © John Gollings
What is important about commissioning public art?
Artists should not be expected to illustrate a theme. If you ask an acclaimed artist to illustrate or reduce their work to clichéd symbols, this is a big public art failing. The integrity of the artist’s or designer’s work needs to be respected. They are selected on those merits and the integrity of their work is ushered through the process to the final commissioning phase.
Image © John Gollings
All three commissioned artists – Japanese Yayoi Kusama, and Australians Sally Gabori and Gemma Smith – are women, and two (Kusama and Gabori) are octogenarians. Is this unusual?
Most often I imagine it would be mostly male artists and they would be of a certain age and experience level. Demographically and artistically these women bring together three entirely different perspectives which, for me, make a statement about democracy being about difference.
Image © John Gollings
Yayoi Kusama
Jay Younger
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Schneider Electric’s new range are making bulky outlets a thing of the past with the new UNICA X collection.
The Sub-Zero and Wolf Kitchen Design Contest is officially open. And the long-running competition offers Australian architects, designers and builders the chance to gain global recognition for the most technically resolved, performance-led kitchen projects.
A longstanding partnership turns a historic city into a hub for emerging talent
Gaggenau’s understated appliance fuses a carefully calibrated aesthetic of deliberate subtraction with an intuitive dynamism of culinary fluidity, unveiling a delightfully unrestricted spectrum of high-performing creativity.
The Italian creative design competition calls for designers under the age of 35 to submit an original and unpublished chair design suitable for either residential or contract use. The competition is open to International architects, designers and students attending faculties of Architecture or Design Institutes. Originality, innovation and function are all taken into account by […]
Now in its third series, Australia By Design continues to captivate and engage the Australian design community through exploring the country’s most exemplary architectural projects.
As we know, in the design world there’s no greater time to debut new products than at Salone del Mobile. Over an exciting week, thousands of exhibitors and visitors peruse the latest in design, and Italian design luminaries Lema, Fantini, Valcucine and Falper, are no exceptions.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
Mizzi Studio has completed The Living Bridge, a regenerative education and co-learning space at Green School Bali.
Redefining angularity of form as a welcoming architectural gesture, the multi-purpose learning hub at St Kevin’s College embraces the responsive geometry of light and shade to forge a profound connection with its urban locale.