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Lot Essay
Yoshitomo Nara is a major figure in the contemporary Japanese art scene. Though he never received formal training in an art academy, the influence of mass audience-oriented illustrations for children - an influence he readily admits - has made for a diverse range of work, from illustrations, sculptures and installations to commercial designs. He uses simple and easily comprehendible designs, opening up art to more people and breaking the awkwardness between traditional, upper-class art and post-WWII Japanese popular culture. In addition, his ability to reinvent traditional Japanese culture has contributed to taking Japanese contemporary art to a global level.
Contemporary art has seen many transformations. Picasso's Still-life on an Armchair in 1912 is a collage of real objects, rejecting the notion that art must be a two-dimensional painting. The pioneer of Dadaism, Duchamp, opened up possibilities for future artworks through the Glass pieces. The Pop artist Haring took art away from the canvas to public spaces, adopting a graffiti style in his works and enabling creative freedom. Yoshitomo Nara's Untitled (Lot 65) is an exciting piece of work which shows a breakthrough from the traditional style of painting. His improvised paintings on the temporary wooden cylindrical walls in the Barry Mcgee exhibition in the Little More Gallery in Tokyo in December of 2000 was a response to Mcgee's graffiti-style work (Fig. 1). After the exhibition, the work was transferred onto a 2-D plane for private collection. In artistic terms, on-the-spot performing, creating installations and drawing are rare for Yoshitomo Nara. He later designed a fairytale-style wooden house in the name of YNG, and a wooden "notice board" painting, demonstrating his personal interpretation of painting and architecture.
Untitled is made up of two larger and two smaller wooden planes. The characters and details are depicted in the larger, vertical wooden planes. There is no obvious background for this image, apart from the small piece of land with four trees which represents an outdoor space, the rest of the image is negative space. The use of negative space is a popular practice in oriental paintings, creating freedom for the imagination and highlighting the importance of the main subject. Five girls are aimlessly floating in an unknown world - the girl wearing a blue dress on the right is raising her arm to another girl with her hair tied up. Though the two of them lack direct physical contact, they look as if they are inviting each other to play, or competing for something, creating a rather tense atmosphere. The edge of the white cloud in the centre of the right plane is extended to the left, enhancing the cohesiveness between the two planes. The work echoes the traditional Japanese foldable screen paintings. The girl mounted on the cloud, especially reminds one of Tawaraya Statsu's Screen Painting of the Wind God and Thunder God (Fig. 1) in the 17th century. The artist skillfully uses details to guide the viewer's eyes from one side to another, so spatial changes and movement can be achieved even with a blank background.
Girls by Yoshitomo Nara often have complicated emotions. In another round-shaped work, the girl in the image is put against a blank background, like an adult being ignored in a lonely corner. However, she does not show sadness but stares in a particular direction with angry and discontented eyes. A lot of adult viewers may have shared a similar childhood experience connecting them to the artwork. The world in the Untitled has a conflicted atmosphere. It appears more jolly the girls in groups interacting with each other. They are reading together with the descriptions "Merry Christmas" and a "Happy New Year" and one is led to think that the image is about a joyful festive celebration. However, upon closer examination, the two of the girls have really sharp canines. The girl in red is crossing her arms and. with the blank speech bubble right above her, she seems to be planning how to defend herself against the girl who is waving her fists at her. At the bottom, the girl in green is punching the girl in the middle, while another child is smiling cunningly, illustrating a bullying scene. This establishes a connection with a lot adult viewers by recalling their childhood, or even a bullying experience in their current lives.
We can see from the Untitled that Yoshitomo Nara's characters are simple and often two-dimensional. The girls' round and swollen cheeks, bead-like eyes, cone-shaped limbs and triangular body, have an affinity with Picasso's geometrical cubism. (Fig. 2). However, Yoshitomo Nara modelled most of his characters from Ukiyo-e (The Floating World) developed during the Edo period (Fig. 3, 4, 5), where the scale and facial expression of human figures are more exaggerated. This approach amplifies the internal emotional turmoil of the characters, creating a mind-blowing effect on viewers. It also underscores his desire to create art that connects directly with viewers by showing his characters' emotions. Abandoning his studio, he directly and spontaneously created Untitled at the exhibition site. Free of the restraint of genres and forms, this piece of work has the special distinction of pulling the artist closer with his viewers much like his interactive installations.
Contemporary art has seen many transformations. Picasso's Still-life on an Armchair in 1912 is a collage of real objects, rejecting the notion that art must be a two-dimensional painting. The pioneer of Dadaism, Duchamp, opened up possibilities for future artworks through the Glass pieces. The Pop artist Haring took art away from the canvas to public spaces, adopting a graffiti style in his works and enabling creative freedom. Yoshitomo Nara's Untitled (Lot 65) is an exciting piece of work which shows a breakthrough from the traditional style of painting. His improvised paintings on the temporary wooden cylindrical walls in the Barry Mcgee exhibition in the Little More Gallery in Tokyo in December of 2000 was a response to Mcgee's graffiti-style work (Fig. 1). After the exhibition, the work was transferred onto a 2-D plane for private collection. In artistic terms, on-the-spot performing, creating installations and drawing are rare for Yoshitomo Nara. He later designed a fairytale-style wooden house in the name of YNG, and a wooden "notice board" painting, demonstrating his personal interpretation of painting and architecture.
Untitled is made up of two larger and two smaller wooden planes. The characters and details are depicted in the larger, vertical wooden planes. There is no obvious background for this image, apart from the small piece of land with four trees which represents an outdoor space, the rest of the image is negative space. The use of negative space is a popular practice in oriental paintings, creating freedom for the imagination and highlighting the importance of the main subject. Five girls are aimlessly floating in an unknown world - the girl wearing a blue dress on the right is raising her arm to another girl with her hair tied up. Though the two of them lack direct physical contact, they look as if they are inviting each other to play, or competing for something, creating a rather tense atmosphere. The edge of the white cloud in the centre of the right plane is extended to the left, enhancing the cohesiveness between the two planes. The work echoes the traditional Japanese foldable screen paintings. The girl mounted on the cloud, especially reminds one of Tawaraya Statsu's Screen Painting of the Wind God and Thunder God (Fig. 1) in the 17th century. The artist skillfully uses details to guide the viewer's eyes from one side to another, so spatial changes and movement can be achieved even with a blank background.
Girls by Yoshitomo Nara often have complicated emotions. In another round-shaped work, the girl in the image is put against a blank background, like an adult being ignored in a lonely corner. However, she does not show sadness but stares in a particular direction with angry and discontented eyes. A lot of adult viewers may have shared a similar childhood experience connecting them to the artwork. The world in the Untitled has a conflicted atmosphere. It appears more jolly the girls in groups interacting with each other. They are reading together with the descriptions "Merry Christmas" and a "Happy New Year" and one is led to think that the image is about a joyful festive celebration. However, upon closer examination, the two of the girls have really sharp canines. The girl in red is crossing her arms and. with the blank speech bubble right above her, she seems to be planning how to defend herself against the girl who is waving her fists at her. At the bottom, the girl in green is punching the girl in the middle, while another child is smiling cunningly, illustrating a bullying scene. This establishes a connection with a lot adult viewers by recalling their childhood, or even a bullying experience in their current lives.
We can see from the Untitled that Yoshitomo Nara's characters are simple and often two-dimensional. The girls' round and swollen cheeks, bead-like eyes, cone-shaped limbs and triangular body, have an affinity with Picasso's geometrical cubism. (Fig. 2). However, Yoshitomo Nara modelled most of his characters from Ukiyo-e (The Floating World) developed during the Edo period (Fig. 3, 4, 5), where the scale and facial expression of human figures are more exaggerated. This approach amplifies the internal emotional turmoil of the characters, creating a mind-blowing effect on viewers. It also underscores his desire to create art that connects directly with viewers by showing his characters' emotions. Abandoning his studio, he directly and spontaneously created Untitled at the exhibition site. Free of the restraint of genres and forms, this piece of work has the special distinction of pulling the artist closer with his viewers much like his interactive installations.