Yayoi Kusama

MOMA Contemporary, Fukuoka
Private Collection, Tokyo

Shimane, Iwami Art Museum, Yayoi Kusama, February - May 2006

This work is in very good condition overall. There is a 1/4 inch media loss located 19 1/2 inches from the bottom edge along the right edge of the second panel from the left. Additionally, there is light wear and small abrasions at the corners. Under ultra violet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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Arguably the most renowned post-war artist from Japan, Yayoi Kusama has been painting her countless versions of Infinity Nets since her arrival to New York in the fifties. Indeed, the origins of the Infinity Nets can be traced to a hallucination that first happened when she was ten years old "...looking at a red flower-patterned table cloth, I turned my eyes to the ceiling and saw the same red flower patterned everywhere...the room, my body, the entire universe was filled with it" (Yayoi Kusama, Laura Hoptman. Phaidon, London 2000, p. 35).

The present work, Infinity Nets, 2005, recalls the first pivotal hallucination, when as a child the dark red color consumed her existence " ...and [she] had been reduce [ed ]to the infinity of the eternal time and the absolute of space" (Ibid). Like Kusama's first hallucination, the vivid red color of the present Infinity Nets combined with the sheer size of the four canvasses create the disorienting effect of time and space.

The process of painting Infinity Nets is central to the meaning of the work. Compulsively painting, often for days at a time, Kusama poured herself physically and emotionally into her canvases. In essence these works are physical imprints of the artist herself. Kusama frequently poses with her Infinity Nets, "standing in front of, on, above, or below to ensure the viewer makes the connection between her physical self and her work" (Ibid 46).