Yayoi KUSAMA (born in 1929)
Intro
Since the age of 10 Yayoi Kusama suffers from hallucinations. Watching the behavior of her parents had added an obsessive horror of sex. Poetry is not enough. To fight her anxiety, she paints patterns of tiny identical polka dots on unlimited surfaces. She sees in hallucination the motif which she is painting, infinitely repeated, and comes to assimilate it to the contradiction between individual and mankind.
The infinite repetition of the red flower pattern of the family tablecloth was a major element of these early hallucinations. She reported seeing the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, her body and the universe, threatening her own life.
Aged 19 in 1948, she paints Flower Spirit, a morbid suite of waves of sanguineous flowers. A seminal 1950 work is titled Accumulation of the corpses (Prisoner surrounded by the curtain of depersonalisation).
She arrives in New York City in June 1958, bringing therein the visual elements of her hallucination. Viewing the network of lights of New York from the top of the skyscrapers, she appreciates the mystical dimension of her own ailment.
The world is an unlimited net or curtain. She expresses its infinity, spending dozens of consecutive hours to tirelessly paint evenly throughout the canvas the same tiny colorful pattern whose repetition cancels her discomfort. The basic element is a polka dot but it can also take other forms. She is nothing but one of these insignificant dots in the infinity of mankind, but she would like this dot to become highly visible.
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 other artists including Manzoni, Ryman, Uecker and the unlimited repeatability of her brush is comparable to Agnes Martin's. In 1961 she moves her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and Eva Hesse.
This work is never finished. She is able to perform it without resting during forty or fifty hours, satiating her body and subconscious mind in this repetitive task. Each of these identical dots is at one moment an achievement of her creation. When a canvas is entirely filled with that white proliferation, she begins another one that can be viewed as its extension.
The flat surface of her paintings is no longer enough for her. In 1962 she fills socks with cotton or mattress stuffing to simulate phalluses which she uses to fully cover some pieces of furniture and various objects. To evoke the female fertility, she recovers cardboard egg cartons that she dispositions convex side up on large canvases in the same tight repetition as for her Interminable Nets. The interstices are clogged with a stuffing and the whole is painted.
The creative act is a temporary therapy that does not heal her obsession against sex. Wanting to face it like Dali had done thirty years earlier, she will end her New York period in exhibitionism and pornography. In indecent happenings, she paints her signature polka dots on her clothes or her bare skin and will later do the same on her assistants.
The infinite repetition of the red flower pattern of the family tablecloth was a major element of these early hallucinations. She reported seeing the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, her body and the universe, threatening her own life.
Aged 19 in 1948, she paints Flower Spirit, a morbid suite of waves of sanguineous flowers. A seminal 1950 work is titled Accumulation of the corpses (Prisoner surrounded by the curtain of depersonalisation).
She arrives in New York City in June 1958, bringing therein the visual elements of her hallucination. Viewing the network of lights of New York from the top of the skyscrapers, she appreciates the mystical dimension of her own ailment.
The world is an unlimited net or curtain. She expresses its infinity, spending dozens of consecutive hours to tirelessly paint evenly throughout the canvas the same tiny colorful pattern whose repetition cancels her discomfort. The basic element is a polka dot but it can also take other forms. She is nothing but one of these insignificant dots in the infinity of mankind, but she would like this dot to become highly visible.
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 other artists including Manzoni, Ryman, Uecker and the unlimited repeatability of her brush is comparable to Agnes Martin's. In 1961 she moves her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and Eva Hesse.
This work is never finished. She is able to perform it without resting during forty or fifty hours, satiating her body and subconscious mind in this repetitive task. Each of these identical dots is at one moment an achievement of her creation. When a canvas is entirely filled with that white proliferation, she begins another one that can be viewed as its extension.
The flat surface of her paintings is no longer enough for her. In 1962 she fills socks with cotton or mattress stuffing to simulate phalluses which she uses to fully cover some pieces of furniture and various objects. To evoke the female fertility, she recovers cardboard egg cartons that she dispositions convex side up on large canvases in the same tight repetition as for her Interminable Nets. The interstices are clogged with a stuffing and the whole is painted.
The creative act is a temporary therapy that does not heal her obsession against sex. Wanting to face it like Dali had done thirty years earlier, she will end her New York period in exhibitionism and pornography. In indecent happenings, she paints her signature polka dots on her clothes or her bare skin and will later do the same on her assistants.
Interminable Net
1
1959 Untitled (Nets)
2022 SOLD for $ 10.5M by Phillips
In 1959 Yayoi Kusama covers her canvases with a network of regularly spaced dots in white paint, in a minimalist gesture that she reproduces without any other modification than thickness variations. Her obsession cancels all notions of composition : in each work there is no beginning, no ending, and no focal point.
An Untitled (Nets) that had belonged to Uecker, oil on canvas 130 x 116 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 10.5M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 11.
An Untitled (Nets) that had belonged to Uecker, oil on canvas 130 x 116 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 10.5M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 11.
2
1959
2019 SOLD for HK$ 62M by Sotheby's
Yayoi Kusama reaches her target of astonishing the New York arts community. Her art is the opposite of all tendencies : it does not offer the global effect of abstract expressionism, nor the gestural amplitude of action painting, nor the new figuration of pop art. Her monochrome white is not a sign of purity but a provocation. Donald Judd is amazed.
Interminable net No. 2, oil on canvas 183 x 274 cm painted in 1959 which had belonged to Judd, was sold for $ 5.8M by Christie's on November 12, 2008, lot 20.
Interminable net # 3, oil on canvas 133 x 125 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 5.9M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2015, lot 17.
Interminable net # 4, oil on canvas 144 x 109 cm painted in 1959, was sold for HK $ 62M by Sotheby's on April 1, 2019, lot 1144.
Interminable net No. 2, oil on canvas 183 x 274 cm painted in 1959 which had belonged to Judd, was sold for $ 5.8M by Christie's on November 12, 2008, lot 20.
Interminable net # 3, oil on canvas 133 x 125 cm painted in 1959, was sold for $ 5.9M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2015, lot 17.
Interminable net # 4, oil on canvas 144 x 109 cm painted in 1959, was sold for HK $ 62M by Sotheby's on April 1, 2019, lot 1144.
3
1960 Red
2015 SOLD for HK$ 55M by Sotheby's
In 1959 in New York, Yayoi Kusama focused on the white which is a better symbol of the infinity of the cosmos. In 1960 she comes back to the red which takes the form of a curtain barring her negligible person from the infinite world as a direct emanation from her psychological anguish.
No. Red B, oil on canvas 175 x 133 cm painted in 1960 in her signature repetitive brush work, was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 30M by Sotheby's on October 4, 2015, lot 1062.
On November 12, 2014, Christie's sold for $ 7.1M White No. 28, oil on canvas 148 x 111 cm painted in 1960, lot 8.
The very long stay of the artist in New York is a continuous attempt to escape the common fate. She imagines and realizes many happenings at the extreme limits of decency and even beyond.
She is in contact with the avant-gardes. Donald Judd is enthusiastic about her graphic minimalism. She admires the use of ordinary objects of chance by Joseph Cornell who manages an exception to his lonely habits for maintaining with her a daily and platonic relationship which is beneficial to the creativity of both artists. Yayoi Kusama covers with her dots various artefacts as well as the naked bodies of the participants of her performances and uses mirrors to display the infinity.
On September 30, 2017, Sotheby's sold for HK $ 42M an oil on canvas 107 x 92 cm painted by Yayoi Kusama in 1972, lot 1067.
This artwork is an unexpected return to her obsession with the infinity nets but can also be considered as a new prototype by its use of multiple colors.
After 14 years of overwork in New York the artist is exhausted. The sudden death of Cornell on December 29, 1972 completes the ruin of her fragile world. She returns to Japan in the following year. Her voluntary residence since 1977 in a hospital for the mentally ill protects her against her desire for excessive performance without reducing her graphic creativity.
The artist never parted from her obsession. Nevertheless the achromatic Infinity Net (T.W.A.), acrylic on canvas 194 x 260 cm painted in 2000, provides an impression of appeasement with its clouds and flakes of differing grey hues based on a single intricate brushstroke circling dots throughout the surface. The repeated tiny gesture with the brush does not imply an instant view of the desired global infinity, providing the mirage of the clouds. This T.W.A. opus was sold for $ 4.1M by Christie's on November 10, 2022, lot 105.
She continues in a similar style. The triptych Infinity Nets (TWHOQ), acrylic on canvas 194 x 390 cm overall, was painted in 2006 in gold loops around vermilion dots, a combination that may evoke the warmth of the sun. This opus was sold for HK $ 53M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 18.
The presence of white in support of the dots adds a further dimension of nothingness in her mysticism. The acrylic paint brings its luster. Infinity Nets (OXTERAL), acrylic on canvas 160 x 130 cm painted in 2008 as a fine net over a wash of grey-blue, was sold for HK $ 25.7M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 20.
The lifelong quest of Yayoi Kusama is about the existence of an infinity beyond the universe. Her repeated accumulation of dots leaves no place for fancy. She does not indeed view the whole canvas when she meticulously applies her lacing patterns.
No. Red B, oil on canvas 175 x 133 cm painted in 1960 in her signature repetitive brush work, was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 30M by Sotheby's on October 4, 2015, lot 1062.
On November 12, 2014, Christie's sold for $ 7.1M White No. 28, oil on canvas 148 x 111 cm painted in 1960, lot 8.
The very long stay of the artist in New York is a continuous attempt to escape the common fate. She imagines and realizes many happenings at the extreme limits of decency and even beyond.
She is in contact with the avant-gardes. Donald Judd is enthusiastic about her graphic minimalism. She admires the use of ordinary objects of chance by Joseph Cornell who manages an exception to his lonely habits for maintaining with her a daily and platonic relationship which is beneficial to the creativity of both artists. Yayoi Kusama covers with her dots various artefacts as well as the naked bodies of the participants of her performances and uses mirrors to display the infinity.
On September 30, 2017, Sotheby's sold for HK $ 42M an oil on canvas 107 x 92 cm painted by Yayoi Kusama in 1972, lot 1067.
This artwork is an unexpected return to her obsession with the infinity nets but can also be considered as a new prototype by its use of multiple colors.
After 14 years of overwork in New York the artist is exhausted. The sudden death of Cornell on December 29, 1972 completes the ruin of her fragile world. She returns to Japan in the following year. Her voluntary residence since 1977 in a hospital for the mentally ill protects her against her desire for excessive performance without reducing her graphic creativity.
The artist never parted from her obsession. Nevertheless the achromatic Infinity Net (T.W.A.), acrylic on canvas 194 x 260 cm painted in 2000, provides an impression of appeasement with its clouds and flakes of differing grey hues based on a single intricate brushstroke circling dots throughout the surface. The repeated tiny gesture with the brush does not imply an instant view of the desired global infinity, providing the mirage of the clouds. This T.W.A. opus was sold for $ 4.1M by Christie's on November 10, 2022, lot 105.
She continues in a similar style. The triptych Infinity Nets (TWHOQ), acrylic on canvas 194 x 390 cm overall, was painted in 2006 in gold loops around vermilion dots, a combination that may evoke the warmth of the sun. This opus was sold for HK $ 53M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 18.
The presence of white in support of the dots adds a further dimension of nothingness in her mysticism. The acrylic paint brings its luster. Infinity Nets (OXTERAL), acrylic on canvas 160 x 130 cm painted in 2008 as a fine net over a wash of grey-blue, was sold for HK $ 25.7M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 20.
The lifelong quest of Yayoi Kusama is about the existence of an infinity beyond the universe. Her repeated accumulation of dots leaves no place for fancy. She does not indeed view the whole canvas when she meticulously applies her lacing patterns.
Pumpkin
Intro
The hat, more exactly the straw hat worn by the Japanese peasants in the field, is one of the attributes of Yayoi Kusama's fancy from her childhood. While in New York she used to wear extravagant hats and even created a Yayoi Kusama Fashion Company expecting a mass production of hats with her signature designs, so mingling art and fashion.
Yayoi retreated in a psychiatric hospital in 1977 with an artist's studio available for her use in a close vicinity.
In 1980 the hat becomes a theme for her paintings. That highly stylized figurative elements is made of a black fishnet over white and colors that may remind some structures by Dubuffet in irregular quadrilaterals, of simply a set of irregular tiles. The monochrome background is covered with a less regular web in light lines.
A large size Hat, horizontal acrylic on canvas 130 x 162 cm, was sold for HK $ 44M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2024, lot 14. It is possibly the first prototype on canvas by the artist on that theme. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Kusama could not miss the mushroom for its hallucinogenic properties. From the same year, style and size as the Hat narrated above, a Mushroom painted in scarlet red with black dots of gradual size on both cap and foot, vertical acrylic on canvas, was sold for $ 3.36M by Sotheby's on November 20, 2024, lot 35. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
Yayoi retreated in a psychiatric hospital in 1977 with an artist's studio available for her use in a close vicinity.
In 1980 the hat becomes a theme for her paintings. That highly stylized figurative elements is made of a black fishnet over white and colors that may remind some structures by Dubuffet in irregular quadrilaterals, of simply a set of irregular tiles. The monochrome background is covered with a less regular web in light lines.
A large size Hat, horizontal acrylic on canvas 130 x 162 cm, was sold for HK $ 44M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2024, lot 14. It is possibly the first prototype on canvas by the artist on that theme. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Kusama could not miss the mushroom for its hallucinogenic properties. From the same year, style and size as the Hat narrated above, a Mushroom painted in scarlet red with black dots of gradual size on both cap and foot, vertical acrylic on canvas, was sold for $ 3.36M by Sotheby's on November 20, 2024, lot 35. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
The pumpkin became a major element of Yayoi Kusama's hallucinations in her childhood. Visiting a harvesting ground with her grandfather, she noticed a specimen on the size of a human head. The vegetable then began to speak to her friendly, counterbalancing the nasty flowers and dogs of her visions. The pumpkin provides a feeling of abundance and joy, enabling to cancel her desire of self obliteration.
She featured it repetitively from the 1990s as a support to reach a peaceful infinity. The vegetable painted in its natural golden orange on canvases and sculptures appealed to the public. They were decorated with tight patterns of her signature polka dots. Symmetrical and bulbous in a sharp contrast, it provides an illusion of tridimensionality. Its sunny color provides optimism.
At the Venice biennale in 1993 she exhibited her pumpkin sculptures in a mirror walled room while immersing herself on live amidst the infinity of the vegetables in a polka dotted attire of the same colors. This happening restarted her career after two decades of oblivion. From then the pumpkin, which does not have the abstract austerity of nets and curtains, became her inseparable alter ego. A similar mirror room of pumpkins had been exhibited in 1991 in a Japanese museum.
A Pumpkin painted in 1993 in landscape format was sold for $ 4.9M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 8 B. This early example, acrylic on canvas 73 x 91 cm, is of small size but already has the features of the later examples. In the style of the Op art, the polka dots are displayed in rows of decreasing sizes on each side of the vertical ribs of the pumpkin. The background is an infinite pattern knotted like a fishing net in yellow lines over ebony black.
She featured it repetitively from the 1990s as a support to reach a peaceful infinity. The vegetable painted in its natural golden orange on canvases and sculptures appealed to the public. They were decorated with tight patterns of her signature polka dots. Symmetrical and bulbous in a sharp contrast, it provides an illusion of tridimensionality. Its sunny color provides optimism.
At the Venice biennale in 1993 she exhibited her pumpkin sculptures in a mirror walled room while immersing herself on live amidst the infinity of the vegetables in a polka dotted attire of the same colors. This happening restarted her career after two decades of oblivion. From then the pumpkin, which does not have the abstract austerity of nets and curtains, became her inseparable alter ego. A similar mirror room of pumpkins had been exhibited in 1991 in a Japanese museum.
A Pumpkin painted in 1993 in landscape format was sold for $ 4.9M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 8 B. This early example, acrylic on canvas 73 x 91 cm, is of small size but already has the features of the later examples. In the style of the Op art, the polka dots are displayed in rows of decreasing sizes on each side of the vertical ribs of the pumpkin. The background is an infinite pattern knotted like a fishing net in yellow lines over ebony black.
1
1995 canvas
2023 SOLD for HK$ 56M by Phillips
An acrylic on canvas 112 x 146 cm painted in 1995 was sold for HK $ 56M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Phillips on March 30, 2023, lot 10.
2
2011 canvas
2023 SOLD for HK$ 55M by Sotheby's
The Pumpkin reference TWPOT is an acrylic on canvas 130 x 162 cm in landscape format painted in 2010. It was sold for HK $ 54M by Sotheby's on April 1, 2019, lot 1138.
The A-Pumpkin reference BAGN-8, acrylic in canvas 162 x 130 cm painted in 2011 in portrait format, was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1129.
The A-Pumpkin reference BAGN-8, acrylic in canvas 162 x 130 cm painted in 2011 in portrait format, was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1129.
3
2013 canvas LPASG
2021 SOLD for HK$ 63M by Christie's
The Pumpkin reference LPASG, acrylic on canvas 130 x 130 cm painted in 2013 by Yayoi Kusama, was sold for HK $ 63M from a lower estimate of HK $ 45M by Christie's on December 1, 2021, lot 52. The canvas is square and the patterns of dots are tight.
The Pumpkin reference SKLO, acrylic on canvas 130 x 162 cm painted in 2013, was sold for HK $ 51M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 59.
The Pumpkin reference SKLO, acrylic on canvas 130 x 162 cm painted in 2013, was sold for HK $ 51M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 59.
4
2014 bronze L
2023 SOLD for HK$ 63M by Sotheby's
For the first time in 1994 Yayoi Kusama exhibited a larger than life massive yellow and black-dotted pumpkin sculpture at the end of a pier. It was followed by many others.
The version L is the largest bronze of Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, 240 x 235 x 235 cm. It was cast in 2014 in an edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs. The 8/8 was sold for HK $ 63M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The rows of dots cover the whole surface in decreasing size from top to bottom of the ribs.
The Pumpkin version M edited in 2014 is a bronze 187 x 187 x 182 cm. The number 8/8 was sold for $ 6.5M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2022, lot 15.
The version L is the largest bronze of Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, 240 x 235 x 235 cm. It was cast in 2014 in an edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs. The 8/8 was sold for HK $ 63M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The rows of dots cover the whole surface in decreasing size from top to bottom of the ribs.
The Pumpkin version M edited in 2014 is a bronze 187 x 187 x 182 cm. The number 8/8 was sold for $ 6.5M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2022, lot 15.
5
2017 sculpture
2021 SOLD for HK$ 55M by Christie's
A Pumpkin 215 x 180 x 180 cm made in 2017 in fiberglass reinforced plastic and urethane was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 28M by Christie's on December 1, 2021, lot 72.
Its shape and graphic style are similar to the M bronze narrated above, excepted that the grooves are empty of polka dots.
A Pumpkin executed in 2013 in urethane on fiber reinforced plastics 205 x 210 x 210 cm was sold for HK $ 49M by Christie's on May 28, 2024, lot 68.
A Pumpkin 245 x 260 x 260 cm made in 2022 in fiberglass reinforced plastic and urethane was sold for $ 6.8M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 16B.
Its shape and graphic style are similar to the M bronze narrated above, excepted that the grooves are empty of polka dots.
A Pumpkin executed in 2013 in urethane on fiber reinforced plastics 205 x 210 x 210 cm was sold for HK $ 49M by Christie's on May 28, 2024, lot 68.
A Pumpkin 245 x 260 x 260 cm made in 2022 in fiberglass reinforced plastic and urethane was sold for $ 6.8M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 16B.
2014 A Flower
2023 SOLD for HK$ 78M by Christie's
The flowers had been the theme of Yayoi Kusama's hallucinations from when she was 10 years old. They represent life and death. In red or purple, the blossom heads represent a joyous vitality.
A Flower, acrylic on canvas 162 x 162 cm, was painted in 2014 when the artist was 85 years old. It displays in full front the violet petals of a dahlia head plus the top of the stem and a leaf. The well centered composition over an infinite background of polka dots reminds the paintings of pumpkins of the period.
It was sold for HK $ 78M from a lower estimate of HK $ 65M by Christie's on November 28, 2023, lot 15.
A Flower, acrylic on canvas 162 x 162 cm, was painted in 2014 when the artist was 85 years old. It displays in full front the violet petals of a dahlia head plus the top of the stem and a leaf. The well centered composition over an infinite background of polka dots reminds the paintings of pumpkins of the period.
It was sold for HK $ 78M from a lower estimate of HK $ 65M by Christie's on November 28, 2023, lot 15.
2015 Flowers
2023 SOLD for HK$ 58M by Christie's
Flowers, acrylic on canvas 130 x 97 cm painted by Yayoi Kusama in 2015, features four blooms in bright colors proudly raised on their stems with a few leaves attached, in the follow of van Gogh's Sunflowers. Their bright colors arguably represent the joyous variety of life on earth. The background is the signature yellow fishing net over ebony black.
It was sold for HK $ 58M from a lower estimate of HK $ 32M by Christie's on May 28, 2023, lot 93.
It was sold for HK $ 58M from a lower estimate of HK $ 32M by Christie's on May 28, 2023, lot 93.
