Infinity Nets (OZTTE), 2005
Acrylic on canvas
100×100 cm (39.4×39.4 inches)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘YAYOI KUSAMA 2005 “INFINITY NETS” OZTTE’ (on the reverse)

 

Provenance
OTA Fine Arts, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005

 

Christie’s Paris: 7 June 2018
EUR 835,500 / USD 987,238

Source: Christie’s
YAYOI KUSAMA (NÉE EN 1929) (christies.com)

 

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (OZTTE), with its creamy strokes piled up on canvas, is a salient example of the obsessive paintings that characterized the artist’s eponymous series. The Japanese artist dedicated every canvas in this series to the same subject: layered half circles, meticulously covering a dark undercoat softened by the application of a white wash.

Together, the strokes form a dense chromatic net without beginning or end, suggesting infinite space that extends beyond the confines of the canvas. The works of this series are each nonetheless unique, the result of long hours of painstakingly detailed work. The milky brush strokes in Infinity Nets call to mind the stirring up of an otherwise calm ocean, a constellation in the firmament; they ask the viewer to look inward, to contemplate what is within.