Yoshitomo Nara All My Little Words

Albertina Modern Vienna Exhibition until 1 November

To be called “one of the best-known artists of his generation worldwide”, puts a target on Nara’s back that is undeserved. Such weighty expectations can only make his reputation stumble. His work, and his quiet application to just getting on with it, is in no way brashly populist, even though it may be highly accessible. Known for a decades-long focus on producing images of “angry girls”, the paintings, drawings, and sculptures, might even seem a bit weird and obsessive. And yet they can also be seen as innocent and avoid the creepy cute. In graphic style, there’s a sense of crossover with comic books and also children’s book illustrations. There’s a quality and charm to the craft of their making – ranging widely from the almost throwaway sketch to the highly produced – that perhaps doesn’t come over well in reproduction as they are essentially delicate and sensitive. Nara is strongly associated with the Japanese Superflat movement but his work is not so much about a style, or manifesto, as about a state of mind that he seems to explore. That’s perhaps why the work is so popular. He makes an emotional connection, exploring childhood, girlhood, and a kind of punk sensibility. He apparently finds Western music and English-language songs hugely influential on his work process even though he doesn’t understand the words. In a similar way, much of his fanbase doesn’t understand the Japanese culture he comes from but is delighted to meet him in the spaces where he dreams.

Above: Midnight Pilgrim, 2012/2021 Bronze with black patina, ProWinko ProArt, Courtesy Pace Gallery, Photo by Keizo Kioku.

Left: Work for Dream to Dream, 2001, Acrylic and colored pencil on paper, Collection of the artist, Courtesy Pace Gallery.

Copyright by Yoshitomo Nara.

Trace Formations of Likeness

Haus der Kunst München

Exhibition until 23 July

A visit to this exhibition of more than a thousand images might well have made a nice accompaniment to reading our fashion and beauty special in this issue. At the core, the exhibition is all about the portrait, using a vast survey of photography over centuries and drawing on the terrific archives of The Walther Collection. It explores the ways in which photography empowers or disempowers, represents or re-presents, celebrates or critiques … and so on. It’s here to reflect on and be moved by and changed by. It shows the work of famous living artists – such as Ai Weiwei, Thomas Struth, Pieter Hugo and Ed Ruscha – alongside departed greats – Richard Avedon, August Sander, Bernd & Hilla Becher and others. Most powerfully and meaningfully, it puts the famous and most accepted alongside the anonymous artists or the very much little-known, often from marginalized cultures and places. It generally leaves us to consider the differences and the messages but also presents some conclusions and provocations. It’s a starting point for more exhibitions and publications that might want to review where we have got to with our visual culture … and how we might need or want to change.