Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens

January 24 - April 4, 2004

 
Yoshitomo Nara
Round-Eyed Pilot, 1997, Fiberglass, resin, wood, lacquer paint, and cotton, 18 x 17 x 11 inches, Collection of Jacob and Ruth Bloom, Los Angeles
 
Simultaneously cute and menacing, Yoshitomo Nara's images of young children and childhood pets offer an engaging and enigmatic Pop Art for the new millennium. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland and curated by Kristin Chambers, "Nothing Ever Happens" will include paintings, drawings, and sculptures created by Nara since 1997, many of which have never been shown publicly.

The prolific and soft-spoken Nara is internationally recognized for his neo-pop style paintings and sculptures that feature big-eyed, alternately sad, mischievous, or even malevolent children. Born in 1959, Nara was raised during an era in Japan defined by economic re-development and working families. Like many Japanese children of this era, Nara was a "latch-key kid" who spent time out of school with only his imagination and pets for company. "My art represents my childhood experiences. It is not influenced by Japanese pop culture. I played with sheep, cats and dogs when I came home from school," says Nara.


Yoshitomo Nara
Untitled, 2002, Pencil and colored pencil on paper, 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
 
Although some draw parallels to manga, the popular Japanese comic-strip form, with its child heroes and grim adult backdrops, Nara's children stand apart and alone with their direct gazes and acid grins that hint at much more adult states like fear, anxiety, and vengefulness, if not outright psychosis. In contrast, his tender and friendly dogs offer absolution and tranquility.

Nara invites us to return to a time when innocence and unruliness went hand in hand, when emotions were not expected to be filtered, when make-believe was not equated with lunacy and when the world was a fantastic and terrifying kingdom to be explored, not conquered. His works, which enjoy a cult status in his native Japan and are among the most recognizable of contemporary art images, appeal to a range of generations, nationalities, and temperaments. They are peppered now into the fabric of American pop culture. Adored by everyone from art critics to punk kids, Nara's figures haunt galleries and museums and adorn T-shirts, CD cases, ashtrays and clocks. Like his rebel heroes—Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, Mike Ness of Social Distortion and Green Day's Billie Joe; Nara has the ability to speak for a generation.


Yoshitomo Nara
Sprout the Ambassador, 2001, Acrylic on canvas, 82 x 78 inches, Collection of Jacob and Ruth Bloom, Los Angeles
About the Artist
Yoshitomo Nara was born in 1959 in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Nara, who currently lives and works in Tokyo, received his BFA (1985) and an MFA (1987) from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. Between 1988 and 1993, Nara studied at the Kunstakademie Düssledorf, in Düsseldorf, Germany. Nara has exhibited widely in his native Japan and abroad. In the United States, he gained national attention as part of the popular group exhibitions, Super Flat (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2000); My reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation (Des Moines Art Center, 2001),and Almost Warm and Fuzzy: Childhood and Contemporary Art, (Des Moines Art Center, 2001). Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984.

installation views > click to enlarge




Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens, 2004 Installation, Institute of Contemporary Art. Photo: Aaron Igler.


Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens, 2004 Installation, Institute of Contemporary Art. Photo: Aaron Igler.


Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens, 2004 Installation, Institute of Contemporary Art. Photo: Aaron Igler.

Funders

ICA acknowledges the generous support of the Buddy Taub Foundation as primary sponsor of this exhibition. ICA is also grateful for the generous support of the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, and Urban Outfitters. Special thanks to Bozart Toys, Inc. Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., William Penn Foundation, the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania. (Information complete as of 12/02/03.)

ICA would like to especially thank Yoshitomo Nara and Marianne Boesky Gallery for a limited edition print; the sales of which help underwrite the Yoshitomo Nara exhibition at ICA.

This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and curated by Kristin Chambers. Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens is sponsored by an anonymous donor with the additional support of the Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, The Japan Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, The Peter Norton Family Foundation, Nancy and Joel Portnoy and Jennifer McSweeney Reuss.


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