3 weeks left to see Yoshitomo Nara’s “Nobody’s Fool”
Yoshitomo Nara moved to Germany in the late 80s in an attempt to isolate himself and focus his work. With the language barrier and his obvious outsider status, he became more alone than he bargained for. But it wasn’t all for naught. It was his extreme solitude that made him realize that “each painting needs only to speak to one thing,” and it was during this period that Nara’s style changed drastically from loose and Expressionistic to the stylized, “cartoon” portraits he’s become famous for.
In the past twenty years of his work, there are three themes that occur again and again: isolation, rebellion and music, or at least that’s how the Asia Society Museum sees it. There’s still time to “Nobody’s Fool” before it closes on January 2, and if you check in on Foursquare at the museum you can get 2 for 1 admission.
The three themes are a nice way to organize the exhibition, but much of Nara’s work can be grouped into isolation or rebellion, if not music too, as almost all of it deals with sadness and loneliness as experienced by the children and dogs that populate his paintings and drawings. Like children, dogs remind Nara of their submissive obedience and sadness when left alone. It’s odd, because when I look at his work and at the sharp, bright colors of the big-eyed children and intelligent-looking dogs, I feel anything but sad or lonely. And because his work is so character driven I’m compelled to invent narratives for the “Stuffed Dog” or “The Girl With the Knife In Her Hand.” Maybe Nara would be disappointed by my reaction. At any rate. he ditched the solitude in Germany and moved back to Japan in 2000, where he continues to make bright and happy paintings about sad and mischievous kids.
