西澳藝術(shù)館 （AGWA）欣然呈獻日本著名藝術(shù)家奈良美智（Yoshitomo Nara）在澳大利亞的首次個展。《奈良美智：縱未能及，亦伸手觸月》（Reach Out to The Moon, Even If We Can't）將于2023年2月26日開幕，帶來重要的雕塑作品，以及油畫、素描、陶瓷和攝影作品。

因其精美且辨識度高、亦善亦邪的大頭人物肖像和憂郁的具象雕塑，奈良美智在90年代蜚聲國際。奈良美智在所有媒介中的作品都來自他對大量文獻和靈感的創(chuàng)新提煉，包括在二戰(zhàn)陰影下于日本北部農(nóng)村長大的回憶、60 年代和 70 年代的政治事件、流行音樂、搖滾和民間音樂的聲與形、日本江戶和現(xiàn)代時期的文學(xué)、藝術(shù)，以及他在 80 年代末和 90 年代在德國學(xué)習(xí)和生活時接觸的新表現(xiàn)主義，這些均精心融入進藝術(shù)家既個人又具普世性、充滿了叛逆控訴和強大而優(yōu)雅的作品中。

《奈良美智：縱未能及，亦伸手觸月》為澳大利亞觀眾呈獻奈良美智在2011-2022年間的重要作品。這段時期奈良美智一直在消化2011年3月11日福島災(zāi)難帶來的毀滅性影響，他的家鄉(xiāng)地區(qū)受到地震、海嘯和核反應(yīng)堆故障的多重影響。面對這些，他一度無法創(chuàng)作。但當奈良美智開始接觸泥塑時，他通過切身的接觸找到了回歸創(chuàng)作的方向，從感知過程中發(fā)展至三維形式的全新焦點，隨后擴大并延伸到其他藝術(shù)媒介。（大部分）作品以人頭為型態(tài)，延伸出對地球上相互連結(jié)的生命之脆弱的長遠且深厚的沉思。同樣，每件作品亦受一種自80年代以來一直為奈良美智作品核心的謹慎樂觀態(tài)度所影響，藝術(shù)家始終以個人表達和想像力的力量為榮，尤其在最黑暗的時代更甚。

Opening on 26 February 2023, the exhibition Yoshitomo Nara: Reach Out to The Moon, Even If We Can't brings together major sculptural works alongside paintings, drawings, ceramics, and photography from world-renowned artist Yoshitomo Nara.

Nara rose to international prominence in the 1990s for his exquisitely rendered, instantly recognisable portraits of alternately sweet and vicious big-headed figures and melancholic figurative sculptures. His work in all mediums is the result of his innovative distillation of an enormous array of references and inspirations. These include memories of growing up in rural Northern Japan amidst the lingering presence of World War II, political events of the 1960s and 1970s, the sound and graphics of pop, rock and folk music, literature, art from Japan’s Edo and modern period, as well as the new expressionism he encountered while studying and living in Germany in the late 1980s and 1990s. All of which, and more, is finely honed into work that is both intimate and worldly, full of rebellious protest and powerful poise.

Spanning works from 2011-2022, Yoshitomo Nara: Reach Out to The Moon, Even If We Can't covers a time in which Nara has been processing the devastating impact of the Fukushima disaster of 11 March 2011, which saw his hometown region hit by the combined effects of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor breakdown. In the face of this, Nara found himself unable to make art. He found his way back to his practice through his body as he started making clay sculptures that physically engaged him. From this intuitive process came a renewed focus on three-dimensional forms that then expanded in scale and stretched across other mediums. Taking the guise of (mostly) human heads, the resulting works grew to be a deep and prolonged meditation on the interconnected vulnerability of all life on this planet. Equally, each work is inflected with a kind of cautious optimism that has, in fact, been central to Nara’s work since the 1980s, as he consistently honours the power of individual expression and imagination, especially in the darkest of times.

Dramatically presented in AGWA's largest gallery space, the sculptural works will form a series of interrelated islands that span a range of feeling states. Individually and collectively, they demonstrate Nara's unsurpassed ability to convey emotional nuance with clarity and moving intensity. The feeling of these works is echoed by surrounding drawings, paintings and ceramics in Nara's distinctive style, such as Girl with eyepatch and Peace in Your Heart. Some show the development of specific sculptural works, while others, like Love or Nuclear, connect to the anti-nuclear theme he has engaged with for decades now.

About the Artist

Yoshitomo Nara was born in 1959, in Hirosaki, Aomori prefecture, in Japan’s north. In 1988, after completing a BFA and an MFA at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Nara moved to Germany where he studied under A.R. Penck at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf. He continued to reside in Germany following his graduation and returned to Japan in 2000. Nara held his first solo exhibition in 1984 and since that time has risen to be one of the world’s most respected and popular visual artists.

His work is held by the most important institutions around the globe such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the British Museum, London; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Australia, among others. His first major museum exhibition, I DON’T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME., was staged at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2001, and in 2020 he was the subject of a touring retrospective exhibition organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Nara’s work has also been included in recent group exhibitions such as STILL ALIVE: Aichi Triennale, Ichinomiya City, Japan, 2022; FRONT International 2022: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA; STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2020; Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall and Asia Culture Centre, Korea, 2018; and Japanorama: A New Vision on Art Since 1970, The Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, 2017.

His work has been on the covers of records by bands such as Shonen Knife, REM, The Star Club, The Birdy Num Nums and many more, and the covers of books by writers such as Banana Yoshimoto, Hijo Tanaka and Riichi Nakaba. In December 2022, Nara released his second collaboration with fashion designer Stella McCartney.