Visitors go dotty over artworks

BY STACEY WOOD

Yayoi Kusama's dotty art drew tens of thousands of visitors, with queues of people left out of luck when the exhibition ended.

The Mirrored Years display at City Gallery closed yesterday after a 4½-month run that drew more than 88,155 people before the final day.

The gallery's most popular exhibitions, including a free display of Patricia Piccinini's work in 2006, have drawn upwards of 120,000 visitors, but City Gallery director Paula Savage said the latest exhibition had surpassed all expectations.

It was difficult to compare the popularity of the exhibit to others, because there was both an admission fee and a limited capacity.

"We could only allow 200 people in at a time, and then had to do a `one in, one out' system. There were queues, and some people gave up."

Ms Savage said gallery staff were upset to have to turn people away from about 4.15pm yesterday, but a team was arriving at 5pm to immediately begin taking it all apart.

In its last week, the gallery extended opening hours for the exhibition and even in the rain people were queuing up outside.

Ms Savage said the exhibit had drawn a lot of attention from the art world. "Frances Morris, head of international art, Tate Modern, specially travelled to Wellington for the weekend en route to Japan, to view the Kusama exhibition."

But it was not just industry big-wigs that went dotty for the spots.

"What's really exciting is that it's brought in an audience that never visits art galleries. And it's gone right across age groups – kids love it, teenagers love it, older people love it."

Ms Savage said Kusama herself was "very happy" with the result.

The eccentric artist, who no longer travels, sent a team to assemble the artworks last year, which took about seven weeks. Now, the works will be dismantled in just a week, so that three new exhibits can be installed.

But the spots on the outside walls of the gallery will stay until the end of the International Arts Festival.

- © Fairfax NZ News