Lot  123 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

Quiet, Quiet

Yoshitomo NARA (Japanese, 1959)

1999

Lacquer on FRP (unique)

94.5(L) x 94.5(W) x 245(H) cm

Estimate

TWD 38,000,000-48,000,000

HKD 9,620,000-12,152,000

USD 1,228,600-1,551,900

CNY 8,796,000-11,111,000

Sold Price

TWD 49,600,000

HKD 12,717,949

USD 1,626,230

CNY 11,428,571


Signature



PROVENANCE:
Blum & Poe, USA
Eugenio Lopez, Mexico
La Colleccion Jumex, Mexico
Maloney Fine Art Gallery, USA
Private collection, USA
Private collection, Asia

ILLUSTRATED:
Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works 1, Chronicle Books LLC,San
Francisco, 2011, color illustrated, no.S-1999-003, p. 268

+ OVERVIEW

Looking Back upon the Childhood Thoughts about Art Creation, I Have the Urge to Shout Out Your Name when Feeling Down: Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshitomo Nara is definitely one of the most popular Japanese artists in recent years. His works are lonely, yet warm; simple and approachable, yet touching. His childish yet rebellious style is fascinating, and is sought after by collectors. Nara prefers working alone, and use his age-defying works of childhood memories to portray touching life experiences.

“All my works are actually my self-portrait in my mind, they are my conversations with myself.”- Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshimoto Nara, the Japanese artist who prefers to a solitary affair, have become the household names in areas such as cross-genre fusion, pop culture, fashion, literature, and commercial art. There can be no doubt that this artist, unwilling as he is to grow up, continues to live a richer and deeper life than many adults.

Memories, especially the most distant ones from his childhood, are a very important source of inspiration for Yoshitomo Nara. In a way, his travels in Asia and Europe marked the end of his adolescence, serving as a rite of passage into his new life as an artist. His experiences on the road also opened up new channels of communication with the world around him, encouraging him to explore the mysteries of life.

The characters in Nara’s works all share one thing in common: they are all alone. The cold city of Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture was where Nara grew up, and as he said, “I was very lonely, with only apple trees around me......Mother Nature is all I can talk to, so I talk to trees, dogs, pigs......That’s why I have a special feeling towards nature. After a few years, I found out that this is not actually a bad thing.” Nara moved and lived in Germany for 12 years in total, with his hometown tens of thousands of kilometers away and language barrier in place, it was like a long journey of self-imposed exile. Nara once said: “The cold and darkness in Dusseldorf was similar to my childhood in Aomori. With the sense of distance from Japan, it reminds me of who I am, and helped me to rediscover myself.”

“No-one can really learn the meaning of life, all we can do is to feel it.”- Yoshitomo Nara

Whether eyes open or closed, characters in Nara’s works always look like they have refused to interact with the outside world. To Nara, whose childhood was spent with only storybooks and music as his partners, these characters are what was the most natural to him, an accurate portrayal of himself. Deep down inside, the artist’s greatest wish must be to stay like a child forever. As long as he can paint, he will be happy. When he was small, Nara’s mother would often give him promotional flyers and handouts. The backs of these, which usually had nothing printed on them, provided the perfect drawing paper for Nara, allowing him to paint or even just doodle away to his heart’s content. To this day, he still enjoys doodling and scribbling just for fun. It is not surprising, then, that his work radiates a childlike charm, and that the artist often comes off as less than a grown-up.

“I’ve never lost sight of my roots, never forgotten who I was at 25, and how all I was doing at that time was to follow my own dreams and pursue my own goals.” -Yoshitomo Nara

In 1995, Nara released a large sculpture of a puppy for the first time in Tokyo. After that, he began to use more fiberglass in his works to turn the kids and animals from his paintings into sculptures, which received very positive critical response. Quiet, Quiet uses four bobbleheads as the theme, resembling kids and also like young monkeys, they are stacked in a cup. Nara’s dolls always reflect the artist’s mindset and his life stories. With their eyes closed, constantly in meditation, they give the viewers a large room of imagination. The museum-grade sculpture installation Quiet, Quiet stands 245 cm tall, and was created in 1999. It uses a unique light color shade to create a magical space filled with fantasies.

The Pure Age that Dominated the International Market

After Returning from Germany, Nara held his first solo exhibition in Japan at Yokosuka Museum of Art in 2001, named “I Don’t Mind, If You Forget Me”. He gained his fame quickly after that, when his easy-to-understand slogans and images attracted many viewers. Since then, many international painting fairs and famous public art institutes have included his works, among them: Aomori Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Art Institute of Chicago, British Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Malaga, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, National Centre for Visual Arts in Paris, Neues Museum Nürnberg and Queensland Museum in Brisbane. In addition to Koyama, Yoshitomo Nara has worked with various other international galleries, including Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, who have been showcasing his work on a regular basis since 1997. Other galleries more recently featuring Nara’s work include London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery, Munich’s Zink & Gegner, New York’s Marianne Boesky Gallery, and Hong Kong’s Pace Gallery. His creations are also in private hands around the world, being sought after by many collectors.

In October 2019, his painting broke his own record, being sold at over US$ 25 million. Meanwhile, one of his installations was sold at over US$ 5 million. With these auction results, it is clear that Nara’s works have become new primary collectibles in the Asian market. With his unbound talents and his refusal to grow up, Yoshitomo Nara is continuing his brilliant life experiences.


Related Info

Modern & Contemporary Asian Art

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

Sunday, December 1, 2019, 2:00pm