UNIQLO Tate Play: Ei Arakawa's Mega Please Draw Freely and Gutai

About the project

Staged in July and August 2021, Ei Arakawa’s Mega Please Draw Freely welcomed families and audiences of all ages returning to Tate Modern not long after the third lockdown in 2021. Mega Please Draw Freely invited visitors to enter a theatrical pine forest and sketch, doodle and draw all over the Turbine Hall floor. It takes experimental Japanese group Gutai’s approach to play as its central focus, particularly as it relates to children’s participation in art.

Resonating with the post-war moment in which Gutai operated, Mega Please Draw Freely creates a space for collective mark-making and movement. Arakawa reimagined Gutai’s leader Yoshihara Jirō's Please Draw Freely (1956) on a ‘mega’ scale, offering the Turbine Hall floor for visitors to draw, doodle and sketch on, while recreations of the Yoshihara’s drawing board were positioned outside. Gutai’s International Sky Festival (1960) was also an important influence with participants drawing on large banners which were suspended in the ceiling of the Turbine Hall.

Theatre is a major component of Gutai’s work which Arakawa draws from. Arakawa refers to the Ashiya Park pine trees in large-scaled photographs, recreations of Paul Cezanne’s Great Pine near Aix (1895–7) and cut-outs of Noh Theatre pine trees to fill the Turbine Hall. This sets the stage for playful participatory performances which were held twice daily. The performances incorporated movement, sound effects and spoken word responses comically drawn from the moment – ‘baby wipes!’.

Additionally, a recreation of Motonaga Sadamasa’s ephemeral yet sublime theatre piece Work (Smoke) (1957) occurred intermittently in the Turbine Hall for the Picnic Weekend (which took place between 14–15 August 2021). In this restaging, three bespoke smoke machines punched out smoke rings into the air, lit by coloured lights and set to music.

Mega Please Draw Freely builds on Arakawa’s collaborative performances which often draw on art history, especially the lesser-known history of the Japanese avant garde. Born in 1977 in Fukushima, Japan, Arakawa develops a playful strategy to question and review these histories. He has worked with Gutai’s legacy previously, such as incorporating original paintings by Gutai artists in See Weeds 2011, and he explains Mega Please Draw Freely as an ‘artwork about arts education rather than arts education about art.’

Project credits

Performed by Tate Early Years & Family team with Ei Arakawa
Music by Sergei Tcherepnin and Stefan Tcherepnin
Reproduction of Noh theatre pine tree paintings by Matsuno Hideyo and Dōmoto Inshō,
Kanze Noh Theatre, Tokyo and Kyoto
Board layout design by Cameron Leadbetter
Ashiya park photographs by Yuki Kimura and Nakagawa Ai
Magazine covers from Kirin (February 1948 to May 1964),
Edited by Ukita Yozō and Hoshi Yoshirō
Essay, Kirin & Gutai, 1995, written by Katō Mizuho
Translated by Reiko Tomii. Download a pdf version of the essay [2.3 MB]
Reproduction of Paul Cézanne The Great Pine near Aix c. 1895-97,
The State Hermitage Museum collection
Production assisted by Mashiyama Takayuki, Taka Ishii Gallery
Special thanks to Kanze Mikiko, Katō Mizuho, Takahashi Kenji, Tanaka Kazuhito, Yamashina Yaemon and Ukita Yozō

Mega Please Draw Freely was curated by Susan Sheddan, Convenor, Early Years & Family, Catherine Wood, Senior Curator International Art (Performance), Molly Molloy, Curator Early Years & Family and Tamsin Hong, Assistant Curator International Art (Performance); with Curatorial advisory by Ming Tiampo, Professor, Art History, Carleton University, Canada.

Production by Morgan Robinson, Production Manager and George Rayner-Law, Production Assistant with project support from Julia LePla, Practice and Projects Manager; and interpretation by Zoe Bromberg-McCarthy.

Mega Please Draw Freely was the first project delivered as part of UNIQLO Tate Play, a free programme of art, activities and play for families of all ages.