Since childhood, Yayoi Kusama is practicing drawing and painting to fight her anxiety. She sees in hallucination the motif which she is painting, infinitely repeated, and comes to assimilate it to the contradiction between individual and mankind.
In 1958, viewing the network of lights of New York from the top of the skyscrapers, she appreciates the mystical dimension of her own ailment. She expresses infinity, spending dozens of consecutive hours to tirelessly paint on the canvas the same tiny colorful pattern whose repetition cancels her discomfort.
Her art comes at the right time, when New York seeks to define a new style to supersede the expressionism. Searching for her psychic quietness through a process of annihilation, self obliteration in her own wording, she is supported by Donald Judd and the minimalists. The use of white in art is the concern of many other artists including Manzoni, Ryman, Uecker and the unlimited repeatability of her brush is comparable to Agnes Martin's.
On May 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells Interminable Net No. 3, one of the first works of her new style in New York. This oil on canvas 133 x 125 cm painted in 1959 is estimated $ 5M, lot 17. On 12 November 2014, Christie's sold for $ 7.1M including premium White No. 28, 148 x 111 cm painted in 1960.
This unprecedented therapy by abstract art may have temporarily relieved Yayoi Kusama but did not heal her. Her voluntary move to a mental home in Japan did not stop her creativity.
In 1958, viewing the network of lights of New York from the top of the skyscrapers, she appreciates the mystical dimension of her own ailment. She expresses infinity, spending dozens of consecutive hours to tirelessly paint on the canvas the same tiny colorful pattern whose repetition cancels her discomfort.
Her art comes at the right time, when New York seeks to define a new style to supersede the expressionism. Searching for her psychic quietness through a process of annihilation, self obliteration in her own wording, she is supported by Donald Judd and the minimalists. The use of white in art is the concern of many other artists including Manzoni, Ryman, Uecker and the unlimited repeatability of her brush is comparable to Agnes Martin's.
On May 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells Interminable Net No. 3, one of the first works of her new style in New York. This oil on canvas 133 x 125 cm painted in 1959 is estimated $ 5M, lot 17. On 12 November 2014, Christie's sold for $ 7.1M including premium White No. 28, 148 x 111 cm painted in 1960.
This unprecedented therapy by abstract art may have temporarily relieved Yayoi Kusama but did not heal her. Her voluntary move to a mental home in Japan did not stop her creativity.
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