Yayoi Kusama

Collection of Frances and Frank Okazaki, New York (acquired directly from the artist, 1966)

Private Collection (By descent from the above to the previous owner, and sold: Christie’s New York, 12 November 2021, Lot 139)

Private Asian Collection (acquired directly from the above sale)

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紐約，Frances 與 Frank Okazaki收藏（1966年直接購自藝術家本人）

私人收藏（家族傳承自上述來源，並售於：紐約，佳士得，2021年11月12日，拍品編號139）

亞洲私人收藏（直接購自上述拍賣）

Intricately complex and exquisitely beautiful, Red Nets (1966) is an entrancing early example of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets, the artist’s largest and most acclaimed body of work.

Kusama exhibited her first Infinity Net paintings in New York in 1959. Driven by a great ambition to become a successful artist and rival the dominant male voices of the time, she responded to the prevailing avant-garde language of Abstract Expressionism by turning personal psychological impulse into an ingenious formal concern. Taking on the all-over compositional modus of Ab Ex painters, Kusama developed an all-encompassing visual semantics that privileged repetition and infinity. Although she was first affiliated with the Ab Ex movement in New York, Kusama has defied categrorisation throughout her career. In Japan, her earliest work was considered Surrealist, while the 1960s brought group exhibitions alongside Pop artists and the European ZERO; indeed, the breadth of her practice has spanned performance, video, sculpture, installation, and even literature. Amongst this diverse body of work, however, it is the Infinity Nets that stand as the most iconic and enduring iteration of her ground-breaking practice.

Beneath such a singular aesthetic of epic proportions is a profoundly personal and fragile core. Diagnosed with an obsessional neurosis, Kusama used her art to "self-obliterate" hallucinatory visions through the process of compulsive reproduction of dots and arcs. The present work, with its red and pink arches against a white background, vividly recalls one childhood hallucination in particular – the very first, and the most significant. Kusama recounts: “One day, after gazing at a pattern of red flowers on the tablecloth, I looked up to see that the ceiling, the windows, and the columns seemed to be plastered with the same red floral pattern. I saw the entire room, my entire body, and the entire universe covered with red flowers, and in that instant my soul was obliterated and I was restored, returned to infinity, to eternal time and absolute space. This was not an illusion but reality itself. I was shocked to see to the depths of my soul” (the artist cited in Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, London 2011, n.p.).

Examples from the esteemed handful of early Infinity Nets are held in renowned museum collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other pre-eminent institutions. A striking testament to the alluring and disorienting spatial complexity that has defined Kusama’s work for decades, Red Nets is an archetypal example of the artist’s most beloved body of work, a shimmering, vibrant display of Kusama’s singular visual language.

草間彌生創作生涯中規模最大、作品數量最多的系列《無限網》廣受好評，《紅色無限網》（1966）是同系列的早期傑作，筆觸交織錯綜複雜，精美絕倫。

1959年，草間在紐約首次展出《無限網》系列作品。當年她決意在美國闖出一片天、並抗衡以男性為主導聲音的雄心壯志，驅使她將個人內心的衝動轉化成獨一無二的形態，同時亦機靈地回應抽象表現主義的前衛視覺語言。她採用抽象表現主義畫家密鋪畫面的繪畫手法，發展出一套包羅萬象的視覺語彙，特別強調重複和無限的觀念。雖然草間的早期作品被認為是紐約抽象表現主義運動的一脈，但她由始至終抗拒被標籤歸類。她早年的創作在日本通常被視為超現實主義，於六十年代經常與波普藝術家和歐洲「零派」藝術家同場展出。她的創作類型非常廣泛，涵蓋行為藝術、錄像、雕塑、裝置、文學等多個藝術領域。然而《無限網》一直是她的代表作，也是其特立獨行的藝術生涯中跨越最長時間的作品系列。

一幅幅看上去壯闊延綿無邊的《無限網》，隱藏了藝術家內心深處的脆弱。草間彌生被診斷為強迫症患者後，索性透過反覆描畫圓點和弧線的強迫行為，以藝術「自我隱沒」一切幻象。此作的白色背景上密佈紅色和粉紅色圓弧，生動地勾起她年幼時一次出現幻象的回憶——那更是第一次，也是最重要的一次。草間憶述：「有一天，我盯著桌布上的紅花圖案看了一會兒，然後抬頭，看見天花板、窗戶、柱子彷彿都蒙上了一層紅花圖案。我看到整個房間、我的身體和整個宇宙都被紅花所覆蓋，那一瞬間我的靈魂被沖刷得無影無踪，我恢復到本原，回歸於無盡，那裡有永恆的時間和無垠的空間。那不是幻象，而是事實本身。我看到自己的靈魂深處，震驚不已。」（引自藝術家，《無限網：草間彌生自傳》，倫敦，2011年）

《無限網》系列的早期作品在市場上屈指可數，如今大多由各地知名博物館及機構收藏，包括紐約古根海姆美術館 、紐約現代藝術博物館、芝加哥藝術博物館等。草間彌生默默而熱烈地伏案創作數十載，揮筆灑出一片片令人目眩神迷的複雜空間，而《無限網》堪稱其最受市場和大眾喜愛的作品系列，這幅《紅色無限網》就是一幅出色佳作，展示她獨一無二、閃耀動人的視覺語言。