Yayoi Kusama - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Arndt & Partner, Berlin

  • Catalogue Essay

     Central to Yayoi Kusama’s work since the late 1950s has been a proliferating circular motif – either a polka dot or, conversely, the negative space seen when a looped mark is applied to a surface – which the artist first envisioned during childhood hallucinations and which have obsessed her ever since. The rhythmic undulations of painted loops in the present lot lend the work an ‘all-over’ optical field. The viewer is confronted by a dizzying and hypnotic illusion of indeterminate space. The composition is seemingly without beginning, middle or end – signalling the artist’s obsession with repetition as an expression of desire and self-annihilation. Hers is an art of absolute singularity.
     
    “With the great efforts, and by trading on the endless wilderness that leads to creation, I want to fight my battles to the end with all my might. For this, I can’t afford to waste even a moment. Looking back and realizing that I have spent years of hardships, I am now more determined than ever to struggle even more strenuously with the questions of what is a human being, and what is ‘love’, ‘life’ and ‘death’.” (The artist, in The Present Time of Eternity, exh. cat., Tokyo Modern Art Museum, 26 October – 19 December 2004)

  • Artist Biography

    Yayoi Kusama

    Japanese

    Named "the world's most popular artist" in 2015, it's not hard to see why Yayoi Kusama continues to dazzle contemporary art audiences globally. From her signature polka dots—"fabulous," she calls them—to her mirror-and-light Infinity Rooms, Kusama's multi-dimensional practice of making art elevates the experience of immersion. To neatly pin an artistic movement onto Kusama would be for naught: She melds and transcends the aesthetics and theories of many late twentieth century movements, including Pop Art and Minimalism, without ever taking a singular path.

    As an octogenarian who still lives—somewhat famously—in a psychiatric institution in Tokyo and steadfastly paints in her immaculate studio every day, Kusama honed her punchy cosmic style in New York City in the 1960s. During this period, she staged avant-garde happenings, which eventually thrust her onto the international stage with a series of groundbreaking exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1980s and the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993. She continues to churn out paintings and installations at inspiring speed, exhibiting internationally in nearly every corner of the globe, and maintains a commanding presence on the primary market and at auction.

    View More Works

46

Infinity Nets

2005
Acrylic on canvas.
162.5 x 162.5 (64 x 64 in).
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2005 Infinity-Nets’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£250,000 - 350,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

13 October 2010
London