Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery15 Images
“It’s been 40 years since I started creating things,” says Yoshitomo Nara, referencing the more than 150 drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations that fill the space of his newly-opened retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. “I’m confident enough now to say: this is me, this is my artwork.”
Expanding upon previous iterations at the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Museum Frieder Burda, Nara’s oeuvre comes together here to weave an emphatic narrative of self, tracing his evolution from a youthful rebel to Japan’s most expensive artist (his painting ‘Knife Behind Back’ sold for a record $25 million at a 2019 Sotheby’s auction). On display are his instantly recognisable big-eyed characters – wielding knives, puffing cigarettes and setting houses aflame. These sit alongside early neo-expressionist works made during his time as a student in Germany, and darker, more introspective pieces that emerged in the wake of the 2011 Tōhokuearthquake. For Nara, they all exist in tandem with each other: “Whatever combination of my art that you see, it’s me.”
This is reflected in his willingness to mine his memories for inspiration. Growing up in the rural north of Honshu, Japan’s largest island, Nara spent his youth listening to the US Army’s Far East Network. “I didn’t understand English at the time, but I loved the melodies, the rhythms and the feel of rock and folk music,” he says. At ten, he started collecting records – their evocative picture sleeves acting as portals to another realm, through which he could imagine and create “music videos” in his mind. Although Nara later gained a formal education at Aichi University of the Arts and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, it was these serendipitous encounters with art that served as his earliest “teachers”. They granted him the freedom to develop a visual language rooted first and foremost in play.
That Nara continues to be in touch with his inner child is evident throughout the exhibition. Works are organised thematically rather than chronologically, canvases are hung at comically varying heights and oversized installations are placed next to tiny paintings. “I wanted to recreate an old-school Japanese sweet shop!” he says. By demanding that we either come up close or crane our necks, he thrusts us into the curious, meandering and at times nonsensical perspective of a child. “I started doing this in 1984 when everyone was exhibiting their paintings in horizontal lines. Since then, I’ve been trying to improve on this idea.” Even after decades in the spotlight of the art world (and a particularly buzzy Instagram presence), the 65-year-old remains unfazed by rules or convention – doing only as he has always done.
Not merely a gimmick, Nara’s deeply personal sentiments are central to his practice. Describing his works as “self-portraits”, his characters appear in solitude – their murky expressions and curious stances hinting at a deep-seated consciousness well beyond their cherubic years. As the Japanese artist recalls his own latchkey upbringing, it’s clear that this is a state he knows all too well. “I didn’t have a concept of loneliness back then,” he says. “But when I got older and met other kids, that was fun, and I started to forget about my first friend: solitude. Later, I felt sorry for it, so [through my art] I wanted to say, ‘I haven’t forgotten about you, I’m still with you.’”
While most of us prefer to look away, Nara seeks to honour his past self. “What’s important to me is not ‘growing’ as an artist,” he says. “But whether I can get back to where I started – like a child. And then get back to where I am now and move on.” In ‘My Drawing Room’ (2008) Marianne Faithfull’s voice echoes from a house-like installation: “I sit and watch the children play / Doing things I used to do / They think are new / I sit and watch as tears go by.” Furnished with nostalgic knick-knacks, scribbled-on paper and a 130-minute accompanying playlist, Nara explains that “this is [my] childhood dream come true… it’s the house [I] always wanted to live in when [I] grew up.” Looking through the windows, there’s something quietly moving about this reconciliation, this folding-in of time – as memory becomes material, and desire becomes form.
What’s important to me is not ‘growing’ as an artist… but whether I can get back to where I started – like a child
Unlike Faithfull, Nara is not content to simply sit and watch. “I enjoy playing with children,” he tells us. “Or maybe it’s more that they like me and want to play with me.” Pure, unfiltered and instinctive in their approach to the world, he explains that children offer a lens from which he can “learn about the emotional and mental aspects of human existence”. His grey-streaked hair may betray his age, but his spirit is unmistakably youthful (no more so than when he shows us the 1000-something photos of cats in his camera roll). “My friends’ children ask, ‘Is Nara grown up or is he a child?’ I find that so funny because I feel like I can genuinely become the child I once was. But then I’ll see a reflection of myself as this weird, old man and think, ‘Who’s that?’”
On the surface, this may come across as a Peter Pan streak of naïveté. But spending time in the presence of Nara’s works – from the mischievous wink in ‘Black-Eyed Cat’(2003) to the innocent clutch of a flower in ‘Pink Water’(2020) – reveals something more: a radical commitment to earnestness. If age typically begets cynicism, he holds on to the opposing belief that something true, something beautiful is still possible. As his Instagram bio reads, “NO WAR! NO NUKES! LOVE & PEACE!” – a statement not just of his refusal to believe the worst of us, but of his determination to see the best in us.
With the Hayward Gallery marking the final stop of his touring retrospective, where does Nara go from here? Trying to answer that question would prove futile, because, well, the artist himself doesn’t seem to know. A born improviser, he insists that he never plans or thinks when he creates, allowing instead for the work to come to him “organically”. In our increasingly uncertain age, perhaps we should make like Nara – go forth with open minds and see what happens. After all, “everything is hindsight, isn’t it?”
Yoshitomo Nara is on show at Hayward Gallery until August 31.
