Last weekend, my family and I visited the Yoshitomo Nara retrospective "Nobody's Fool" currently at New York City's Asia Society. I'd seen many reproductions of the art over the years but I was utterly blown away by the original marvelous paintings as they hung on the wall inches from my face. Nara's imagery may appear delightfully cute and poppy on the surface, and it is, but behind these works is a punk artist struggling with anger, loneliness, and confusion in a hyperreal society. While I've known about Nara's punk/rock influences and mindset, those dimensions were loud and clear in this new exhibit. Along with nearly 100 of Nara's paintings, the exhibit includes three large-scale installations, including a miniature "home," a combination drawing room, carnival tent, and stage, and a series of small doors leading to tiny differently-lit rooms housing a variety of drawings and paintings.
If you can't make the exhibition in person (and even if you can), I highly recommend the beautiful exhibition catalog, "Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool." It's hardcover, wonderfully designed and presented in a slipcase, and is now one of my favorite art books I've seen this year.
Yoshitoma Nara: "Nobody's Fool" (Amazon)
