YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)

One of the foremost giants of Japanese contemporary art who has recently been established as the highest-selling living female artist, Yayoi Kusama is celebrated internationally for her multifarious oeuvre, among which her ongoing “Infinity Nets” series was the first to become a major phenomenon. Towards the end of the 1950s, Kusama moved to New York City from Kyoto in search of artistic liberation from the traditional conventions of Japanese art. It was around then that she began to create an edition of works based on the motif of boundless nets. Despite the prevalence of Abstract Expressionism at the time, Kusama embarked on an original, individualistic technique of repetitive brushstrokes using a monochromatic palette, which sparked the beginning of Minimalism and Pop art. Her meticulosity and technical finesse resulted in mesmerizing, hypnotic compositions that insinuate her inherent obsessive neurosis. Kusama explained that the inspiration for the series stemmed from the hallucinatory visions that haunted her since childhood.

Painted in 2000, lot 4 shows an elaborate web of intertwining lines that exceeds the outer edges of the print, insinuating the extension of the lines into the infinite abyss that transcends across the realm of the work and the spectator. Upon viewing the work, the spectator is reminded of the vastness of the cosmos, as well as the infinitude of cells, atoms and the universe.