Robert Miller Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2006

This work is in very good condition overall. There is very light evidence of handling along the edges. The colors are bright, fresh and clean. Only visible under close inspection and under raking light, there is an unobtrusive white pinpoint spot accretion in the lower center of the canvas. Under Ultraviolet inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Framed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Evident in the expansive field of clusters of scalloped brushstrokes overwhelming a vast surface, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (TWOWQ) is a wonderful example of the artist’s ability to create a transcendent space. The Infinity Nets have been a constant throughout the artist’s celebrated and diverse oeuvre, first created in her arrival in New York in the late 1950s. Her early vision can be linked to Abstract Expressionist traditions as her work also permeated a spiritual dimension and utilized all-over compositions. However, her repetitiveness and delicacy in her paintings made her work distinctly different. Her physical gestures are simple but complex and collectively build a perceptual experience.

Kusama’s personal hallucinatory visions, from which she had suffered as a child, inspired her compositions that led to her obsession with infinity and blurring the boundaries between illusion and reality. She explained, “By obliterating one’s individual self, one returns to the infinite universe” (Grady Turner, ‘Yayoi Kusama,’ Bomb, Vol. 66, Winter 1999). Kusama creates her art from her stream of consciousness in a realm that is fiercely⛎ meditative. There is a sense of engulfment in the repetitions of her nets. Through the movement of Kusama’s wrist and her brush’s simple arcs of paint, there is an open display of the process of their making.

In the present work, executed in 2006, the circular forms organically grow throughout the surface in the endless space of innumerable networks Kusama creates. As one stands before the sumptuous surface, the handmade quality of the painting shows an astonishing technical focus by the artist. In a way evocative of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, painted between 1907-08, the markings in Kusama’s work are similarly reminiscent of Byzantine gold-ground paintings or earlier mosaics that show inspiration from a play in perspective and depth enhanced in a golden, illuminated brilliance. Kusa💦ma’s visual langu🌸age, like Klimt’s, also exaggerates a prolific patterning.

In Infinity Nets (TWOWQ), a deep green monochrome lies underneath a golden hue of biomorphic forms that glide across the surface throughout each corner and edge of the canvas. Kusama’s work reveals a sublime beauty which she invented in her own visual language that conveys the complexities of her own mind. Mesmerizing and hypnotic, Infinity Nets (TWOWQ), can be singled out as a formative work by one of the most important living artists to 🦩come out of Japan, and a key voice of the avant-garde.