Il primo ottobre la Galleria Victoria Miro raddoppia i suoi spazi, con la nuova sede in George Street al 14, mostra di apertura con l'artista
Comunicato stampa: Victoria Miro is
delighted to inaugurate its new Mayfair gallery with a presentation of recent
white Infinity Net paintings by Yayoi Kusama. It is the first time Kusama has
exclusively shown white Infinity Nets in Europe and in its select concentration
on these iconic works the exhibition recalls Kusama's debut solo show in New
York at the Brata Gallery in October 1959.
From a distance
these delicate paintings read as monochromes, but up close their intricate
surfaces become visible: small arched semi-circles of white paint almost
completely covering the ground of the canvases. On each painting the underlay,
a wash of black or grey, is obscured by an intricate network of gestural
scallops of paint that combine to form a net. The paintings are characterised
by an all-over surface that suggests detailed lattice- or lacework. The nets
appear to extend beyond the picture planes, suggesting the potential to expand
indefinitely.
The first
Infinity Nets Kusama produced in the 1950s and 60s were white although she
subsequently also made coloured net paintings. Since these first iterations she
has returned periodically to Infinity Nets, and these works have become a
touchstone in her practice for over half a century. Her repeated revisiting and
expansion of this significant body of work highlights its continued importance
to the artist. Her adoption of the title Infinity Net for her autobiography
also reflects their standing throughout her career. In her autobiography, which
is published in paperback by Tate Publishing this September, Kusama describes
her first exhibition:
"I debuted
in New York with just five works - monochromatic and simple, yet complex,
subconscious accumulations of microcosmic lights, in which the spatial universe
unfolds as far as the eye can see. Yet at first glance the canvases, which were
up to 14ft in length, looked like nothing at all - just plain white
surfaces".
The paintings
immediately gained critical recognition and were instrumental in making the
artist's name in New York in the 1960s. Donald Judd, one of Kusama's earliest
and closest friends in New York, was the first collector of white Infinity Net
paintings and brilliantly championed the work in his review of the
exhibitionThe paintings openly display the process of their construction,
making evident the obsessive diligence with which they were made. From their
earliest iterations, the white Infinity Nets have been produced in intense,
protracted bursts of energy. In her early experiments with the form in the late
1950s and early 1960s, Kusama compulsively painted nets for hours on end
without eating or sleeping. Even today when working on new Infinity Net
paintings her focus is single-minded and relentless.
This is in part
because the paintings have such an important position in Kusama's history and
personal mythology. The artist has described her Infinity Net paintings as
visualisations of hallucinations that have recurred since her childhood. During
these episodes her visual field is obscured by an overlay of nets or dots that
appear to cover her surroundings. These hallucinations are just one
manifestation of psychological ill health that has plagued the artist for most
of her life. She describes her primary symptom as a sense of depersonalisation,
of feeling removed from reality. The nets in her paintings can be read as
obscuring screens that allow only a partial view of what lies behind or beyond.
The ground beneath the nets is visible only as specks, or, more accurately in
Kusama's terms, dots.
Kusama's White Infinity
Net paintings are recognized as some of the most compelling works of her
extraordinary oeuvre. The artist has always worked serially, but her periodic
return to the white Infinity Nets is something else: it is as if from time to
time she is compelled to re-immerse herself in this body of work, representing
as it does the purest expression of her artistic manifesto. This exhibition
both in its scale and focussed presentation will completely surround the viewer
with white Infinity Nets in an echo of some of her earliest solo shows in
America from the 50s and 60s.
One of the most
revered artists of her generation, Kusama is known for a rich and diverse
artistic oeuvre, which includes painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation,
film and performance. Although her practice resists singular characterisation
the Infinity Nets have strong associations with several major post-war artistic
movements. In the United States, Infinity Net paintings have been
contextualised with Minimal and Op painting. Their gestural surfaces also ally
them with the work of artists affiliated with Post-Minimalism. In Europe, early
Infinity Nets were shown alongside, and discussed in relation to, work by
artists in the Zero and Nul movements. Despite their historical resonances,
however, the Infinity Nets are not historical artefacts. As this new group of
work demonstrates, the paintings remain contemporary and relevant, continuing
to engage and enthral viewers in the artist's ninth decade.
