Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room

Renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room 2002–present is an interactive work initially developed by Kusama in collaboration with the Queensland Art Gallery as a children’s project for ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ in 2022. The obliteration room consists of a domestic environment recreated in the gallery space, complete with locally sourced furniture…

We can make another future

More than 37 senior, mid-career and emerging artists’ works, created and collected over the past 25 years, are showcased in ‘We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989’ at GOMA until September 2015. Here, we elaborate on the works themselves and the significance of this milestone. Over the past few years, the Gallery has…

Henri Rivière: Thirty-six views of the Eiffel Tower

The Gallery’s edition of 36 lithographs by printmaker, amateur photographer and shadow play theatre designer Henri Riviere (1864–1951), combine the influence of Japanese art in Europe in the late nineteenth century with the impact of the Eiffel Tower on the city of Paris. Modelled on Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s (1760–1849) woodblock prints titled ‘Thirty‑six views…

Contemporary trends, old art

Installed in the restored spaces of the Queensland Art Gallery’s Philip Bacon Galleries, the new display of the International and Asian Collection links both architecturally and conceptually to QAGOMA’s vision for contemporary curatorial practice by offering an historic point of contact from which to begin or end your journey as you navigate your way through…

The sublime and cultural difference

‘Sublime: Contemporary Works from the Collection’ draws together culturally diverse points of contact with notions of the sublime through major works from QAGOMA’s Australian and international collections. Here, we trace some of the multiple historical and cultural narratives surrounding the sublime. In the last 30 years there has been sustained attention to concepts of the sublime in…

Daido Moriyama is known for his gritty, intense photographs

This stunning black-and-white photograph is by Japanese artist Daido Moriyama known for his gritty, intense photographs of the streets of Tokyo. A central figure in Japanese photography since the 1960s, Moriyama is renowned for his distinctive visual style and his singular commitment to documenting the everyday life of a densely urbanised society. An autodidact, Moriyama…