2023-08-14 20:56:49
“It’s not children I’m painting. For me, these are all my own self-portraits,” says the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, who is represented at the Albertina Modern with his retrospective “All my Little Words” from May 10 to November 1, 2023. The focus of this exhibition, which comprises more than 600 works, are the “angry girls” or “big headed girls with piercing eyes” (or whatever you like to call it), which Nara developed in the early 1990s and which have become his trademark.
Loneliness and being alone had a significant influence on the development of these cartoon characters. Nara grew up in the countryside, where she loved playing with animals and talking to herself. This did not change when he lived in the big city of Tokyo (where one feels alone among many people) or later during his studies in Düsseldorf, where he barely spoke German. “Instead of the word, I had the art,” says Nara, who used his girls drawings to express his feelings and emotions. Another major source of inspiration for Nara is Western music, which he enjoyed as a child on the American military radio station Far East Network. “I listen to music, when I draw”: The works that Nara creates on a wide variety of materials – from notes, envelopes to flyers or cardboard boxes – have less to do with the song content than with his personal state of mind and with social criticism in the style of punk – and hippie culture to do.
“Live for the moment”, “Marching on, still alive”, “I’ma son of a gun” or quite straight “Fuck U” come out of the narrow, unpolished mouths of the young girls with their piercing eyes and their angry looks . Of course, the sound shouldn’t be missing: The “Long Hair Rockers” play cool guitars and loud drums. And don’t shy away from using boxing gloves. Whether behind “Stand by me” is the desire for togetherness or the call for more solidarity remains in the eye of the viewer, who is also confronted with their own identity, their past and their values through the comic characters, their emotional outbursts and their slogans should be. “If the audience is able to discern new discoveries, then that makes me happy,” says Yoshitomo Nara, who – as with his major retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) – personally put together the chronologically arranged exhibition itinerary.
Nara experienced a turning point in his artistic career with the triple catastrophe on the east coast of Japan in March 2011. A seaquake triggered tsunami waves that flooded an area of over 500 km2 on the Japanese Pacific coast and led to accidents at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Nara doubted the meaningfulness of his art, but then began to conceive large bronze sculptures (like the “Midnight Pilgrim” exhibited in the Albertina Modern). However, socially critical activism soon returned, primarily opposing nuclear power (“Love or Nuclear”) and the state’s information and communication policy (“For true democracy to work, people need easy access to independent diverse sources of news and information”).
The final highlight of the exhibition is the artist’s “Drawing Room”, which was set up in a separate, darkened room in the form of a hut. “A Place like Home” is the name of this construct, which shows the artist’s (fictitious) studio space with all its pens, drawings, notes, calendars, maps, radios, beer bottles and cuddly toys. A place where Nara not only works artistically, but also withdraws to collect his thoughts and ideas. As a background you can hear his favorite sixties-tinged songs – from the Byrds, Donovan, Mary Hopkin to Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”.
Yoshitomo Nara is not only hot on the art scene – his original works sell for many millions of dollars – but also in protest culture. His works are used at numerous demonstrations and rallies. Supported by the artist himself, who makes them available for free download. So at the next demo in Vienna, make sure that an Angry Young Girl accompanies the protest march…
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