On Wednesday, June 6th, PIASA will present a sale of Prints, illustrated books, and multiples. A beautiful selection of modern and contemporary lithographs and silkscreens will be up for sale, including an etching and a lithograph by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.
Yoshitomo Nara, born in Japan in 1959, is a pluridisciplinary artist known mainly for his ambiguous depictions of young children and animals, whose gentleness and innocence are dissonant with an ominous and violent imagery.
Nara illustrates spirituality, reclusion and rebellion through drawings, paintings, ceramics and installations. He attributes the exploration of these themes to his solitary childhood in Japan, nourished by comic books, the company of animals, and punk-rock. This environment led him naturally to the neo-pop movement, a hybrid between Eastern and Western influences he developed during his studies in Germany, and reminiscent of Takashi Murakami’s work.
Nara’s characters are recurrent - one finds children and animals, often dogs, whose physiognomy evokes Japanese anime, traditional theater masks, and street art. The stare is piercing, turned straight towards the viewer in an almost accusatory confrontation: backgrounds are pared-down, almost non-existent, the canvas showing only characters and sometimes enigmatic or violent sentences (“Fuck you”, “Damn it all”, or, as in lot 153, “Fuckin’ politics!”). The children depicted are innocent, with a disproportionate face and a frail body, emphasizing the fierce, almost aggressive gaze; the dichotomy between violence and innocence is exacerbated by the representation of accessories evoking the brutality of an adult world: knives, cigarettes, bones…
Lot 153 - ƒ Yoshitomo Nara (né en 1959)
Fuckin' Politics ! - 2003
Sold 409 €
Lot 151 of the sale is a great representation of this ambivalence, the simple lines accentuating the childlike aspect of the character, whose face is cold and hard, showing sharp protruding canines giving it an almost feral aspect. The violence brought out is not, however, inherent to the child. Nara himself comments that he sees children “among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives.”
Lot 151 - Yoshitomo Nara (né en 1959)
O.T. - 2002 - une planche
Sold 8 450 €
