Yayoi Kusama

Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2016

This work is in excellent condition overall. The impasto peaks remain stable and intact. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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Considered a legendary pioneer in post-war art, Yayoi Kusama combines attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, process-based art and even pop within her works. However, her spectacular oeuvre evades any such label because of the autobiographical meaning ingrained in her artistic gesture. Diagnosed with an obsessional neurosis, Kusama 'self-obliterates' her hallucinatory visions by reproducing them into nets and dots, transforming herself into a labour-intensive machine. She explained,"My nets grew beyond myself and beyond the canvases I was covering them with. They began to cover the walls, the ceiling, and finally the whole universe. I was always standing at the center of the obsession, over the passionate accretion and repetition inside of me" (the artist in conversation with Gordon Brown in Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann, Eds., Yayoi Kusama, London 2000, p. 103). In essence, the Infinity Net paintings are physical imprints of the artist herself, each loop of the net indexically linked to her very being.