Infinity-Nets (BCO), 2013
Acrylic on canvas
130.2×194.3 cm (51.2×76.5 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘BCO INFINITY-NETS 2013 YAYOI KUSAMA’ (on the reverse)

 

Provenance
Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo
Victoria Miro Gallery, London
Private collection, London
Anon. sale; K-Auction, Seoul, 18 October 2017, lot 111
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

 

Christie’s New-York: 15 May 2019
USD 1,695,000

Source: Christie’s
Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) (christies.com)

 

Veiled in a delicate lattice of small loops and curls, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (BCO) (2013) enthralls with its brilliant white and poetic splendor. Swoops and coils blanket the canvas in a gauzelike web that is at once engulfing and mesmerizing, and the painting’s intricacy of detail beckons us closer. The hypnotic strokes that roll across the surface of the canvas envelop the viewer, completely consuming the surface of the work. The composition is made up of semi-circular arches of pigment, leaving only the slightest glimpses of a soft layer of underpainting. Kusama’s strokes vary from light applications of paint to more globular strokes that allow for one to directly note the artist’s hand. Across the painting’s surface, thick crests of impasto peak and then give way to smooth circlets, rising and falling in rhythmic swells and creating the impression of lace floating on serene ocean waves. Mirroring the quiet repetition that went into its making, Infinity Nets (BCO) stimulates introspection and transcendence, and lulls its viewers into a meditative state.

Kusama traces the roots of her celebrated style back to her childhood, when she first noticed the signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and began experiencing hallucinations, completely enveloping her field of vision. Starting with the onset of her illness at age 10, she created many works over the following several years, demonstrating the fanatical work ethic that she would continue to display as an adult. She has described how the hallucinations have left her in debilitative states, making her Infinity Nets even more powerful, as they help the artist process her experiences.

With her Infinity Nets such as Infinity Nets (BCO), the signs of Kusama’s meticulous obsessive-compulsive behavior are evident in the “infinitely” repeated loops she lays down, one at a time, across the entire canvas. After applying a semi-transparent under layer of chrome-toned paint, Kusama adds small strokes of paint—in this case, white paint, which was the first and historically most significant color of her Infinity Nets—until the surface is covered in loops. In contrast to the gestural and at times explosive practices of the Action painters, Kusama fixes a single, undivided space on the canvas in order to ensure that each individual element of the work is given as much physical structure as possible. Kusama customarily works with the canvas placed flat on a tabletop or other surface, making it impossible to see the whole of the composition while she is painting. In so doing, she is unable to respond to or alter the composition of the work as it is being created, with the result that she is forced to abandon any attempt to try and control the whole of the picture plane or construct it out of parts. Infinity-Nets (BCO) is an arresting example of the artist’s visually complex and psychologically laden series. Executed at the pinnacle of Yayoi Kusama’s career, this painting illustrates the artist’s tireless quest to express the infinity of the universe while coming to terms with her individual reality.