INFINITY-NETS GKSG, 2010, is an iconic Infinity Net canvas by Yayoi Kusama. Forging a path between Abstract Expressionism, then the dominant style, and the nascent Minimalist movement, Kusama first showed her Infinity Nets in New York in the late 1950s, to great critical acclaim; the work was championed by the first wave of Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd and Frank Stella. In these works, Kusama responded to the bravado of Abstract Expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, redefining the heroic gesture as a smaller, incremental, highly sophisticated loop – obsessional, meticulous and labour-intensive. Conversely, especially when seen en masse, these works were often described in oceanic or even celestial terms – the distillation of an endless idea, covering the world. There is a link, in turn, to the character of the hallucinations first experienced by Kusama during childhood, in which her surroundings were overtaken by a proliferating pattern that engulfed her field of vision. Kusama continues to develop the chromatic and emotional possibilities of her Infinity Nets in works such as INFINITY-NETS GKSG, which seem to fluctuate and dissolve as the viewer moves in front of them.

Born in Matsumoto City, Japan, in 1929, Yayoi Kusama lives and works in Tokyo. Over the past decade there have been museum exhibitions of Kusama’s work touring the world in North America, Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, England, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. In 2016, Kusama received the Order of Culture, one of the highest honours bestowed by the Imperial Family. Kusama is the first woman to be honoured with the prestigious medal for drawings and sculptures. In 2021, the New York Botanical Garden will host an exhibition inspired by Kusama’s lifelong engagement with nature and fascination with the natural world. Among additional major exhibitions in 2021 is Kusama’s first large-scale retrospective in Germany, which takes place at the Gropius Bau in Berlin.