new blog post: Yoshitomo Nara Hayward Gallery

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+title = "Yoshitomo Nara at the Hayward Gallery"
+published_at = "2025-08-11T18:47:22+01:00"
+updated_at = "2025-08-11T18:47:22+01:00"
+tags = ["art", "exhibit"]
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+_Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK_
+
+It is telling that the first room at the Yoshitomo Nara exhibit at the Hayward Gallery in London prioritises self-mythology. One is faced with both a massive wall of vinyl record covers, and a miniature children's playhouse packed with kitschy memorabilia and trinkets vibe-curating the background of the practice. The house integrates the themes of youth (rebellion) and adult (indifference), with a splattery mess of child-like paper scribble-drawings on the floor, adjacent to empty beer bottles. Ultimately, it is all too calculated. 
+
+Nara is 65 years old, but he is also a 20-year-old femcel. The tour guide makes a point to tell us to check out the digital aspects of the exhibit. The YouTube videos of him working in the studio. The official exhibition spotify playlist. His work feels like the cultural repackaging of the phenomenon of the hippie boomer/gen-x youth rebel -> bohemian lifestyle green party voter for the born-in-the-wrong-generation romantic. His striking, cute-accelerationist iconographic style is the perfect solvent for carrying this communication into and down the algorithm. I could not help but queue to take the photo. Every time somebody took a snap for their Instagram story, every time I failed to resist, it was working.
+
+The body of work is so consistent over time. The room far back on the upper ground is the only glimpse into his process during his time in Germany, where he developed and locked in said iconographs. There are doodles of similarly-kawaii characters, the color palette of coral red, aqua-teal, and forest green is not yet fully decided upon, still encroached upon by yellows and oranges. There is too much intentionality, to the point it feels insincere and specifically catered towards inflating the value for the art market, and later, the algorithm. It is a very intentional choice to draw like a child. Ponyo-core is currently in right now.
+
+From a non-cynical perspective, the works are technically wonderful and dazzling. Dimensionality arises from minimalism. In the neo-impressionist works, the use of color and the dissonant combinations of the three tones in the palette add depth to the flat complexions. In [Midnight Tears (2023)](https://www.yoshitomonara.org/en/catalogue/YNF7346/) (and similar works), visible brushstrokes create the illusion of a nose bridge and facial structure. Shapes are simultaneously manicured and blurred. The dinosaur-esque interpupillary distance and gaze makes the subject appear dazed and a little dumb à la vine boom sound effect. The expressions are ambiguous and carry a hello-kitty-has-no-mouth effect, allowing the viewer room to project their own emotions onto them. The simple poses perfectly and strikingly bring across differing weights and dynamics.
+
+Returning to ground in the real world: Yoshitomo Nara is selling these for insane amounts of money. If he truly was the kind of person to get arrested by coppers for doing graffiti after being unsatisfied by the London art world, couldn't he just sell his one 12 million dollar painting and like, move on? At the moment, sometimes it feels like the imagery is communicating 'my therapist says I have climate anxiety'-apathy, further, that it's okay to feel that way and sit with it. I fear this means to some that "the world is over and there is nothing I can do about it so I will not try". Comparing the earlier works with his latest, there is a drop in explicitness and unease, less blood, and decline in inflammatory text, and a move towards more subtlety. The weird part is that the future subtlety ends up feeling and communicating more politically.
+
+I have to admit this comfort and subtlety speaks to me. I feel seen in the milky figures unseen by the proper, evil and indifferent adult world. A [Knife Behind Back](https://www.yoshitomonara.org/en/catalogue/YNF2602/) suspends more power than bloody knife visible in [Dead Flower (1994)](https://www.yoshitomonara.org/en/catalogue/YNF1112/). I aim to be the girl standing, stubborn, angsty, against this mess, uncompromising, refusing in place, while still being a little bit hidden, unpredictable, passable as not a threat, but nevertheless ready to strike. _My_ therapist says _I_ have climate anxiety.
+
+It is beautiful, however compromising, for any punk aesthetic to be extended to opulent ends. It almost reminds me of revolutionary murals. I think of these massive paintings sitting in rich peoples' homes and private collections and I feel emotionally broken by the comparative inaccessibility. The tour guide mentions this is his first _public_ solo exhibition in the UK. I can imagine these paintings, comforting and incendiary, being perfect for transitory spaces, like a waiting room, an airport, or a foyer. A place that is for everyone. Somewhere where I can glimpse them in passing, but also where, deserving of attention, you can appreciate them if you are stuck for longer than you expected. Due to their combination of both wide aesthetic appeal and ambiguity I could see appreciation developing over people and time. The generalness and universality of the feeling also lends to this. For example, the collective and anonymous grief exhibited in the paintings of figures partially submerged in milky water, or in other feistier works, a persistent reminder of the child inside, what one wishes for the world.
+
+This is why I am conflicted on the marketability and algorithm-ability of it all. This universality is amplified, but I fear the subtlety can be lost. Also, a parasocial direct relationship with the artist can ruin the relationship with the art. Exhibit A: official Wednesday fanart (on high quality artisinal office paper, mind you).
+
+I am brought back through to the back window of the playhouse, where it is possible to glimpse the logo on a self-incriminating Amazon box. There is an inevitable unending discussion on authenticity and appropriation of punk. It is easy to excuse this all away as simply the Japan-specific flavour of Western culture digestion. Yet Nara is still both expensive, marketed to hell, and institutionalised at one of the biggest galleries in central London. Unintentional intentionality accompanied with moments of self-mythos, or intentional unintentionality with cracks of lucidity? I can't tell if the Amazon box is there on purpose.
+