2024, Yoshitomo Nara, A Sinking Island Floating in a Sea Called Space -- 1 -- Hammer Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label:
Yoshitomo Nara's images of solitary, wide-eyed figures inspired by Japanese and American popular culture have achieved a cult-like status. Actively opposing atomic bombs and nuclear energy, Nara's images have been used in antinuclear protests. Though the artist almost never depicts specific individuals, School Strike for Climate (2019) is an exception. This painting immortalizes the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with her trademark braids and hand-painted protest sign. In August 2018 the then fifteen-year-old started a global movement by ditching school to camp out in front of the Swedish parliament with her now iconic sign. In September 2019 Thunberg inspired four million people to join a global strike, energizing the largest climate demonstration in history. Three days later she traveled by sailboat to the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City to encourage world leaders to support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the hopes of preventing global average temperatures from rising to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average temperature level, a critical threshold ultimately surpassed in 2023. Designated "the voice of the planet," Thunberg is known for blunt speeches that seek to motivate people to manifest the moral courage and determination that many adult world leaders lack.
While many of Nara's youthful characters may not be perceived as conveying overtly political statements, they are nevertheless informed by the political and ecological consciousness of their maker. Nara's portrait of Thunberg is paired with two new paintings conceived specifically for the present exhibition. Each one represents a variation on a "body-as-island" motif, which the artist has been exploring in recent years. They are based on quarantine-era drawings in which diminutive hooded figures, each appearing atop the same pair of floating heads, peer out into emptiness, prophesying a future in which nearby landmasses have vanished under the rising ocean.
2024, Yoshitomo Nara, A Sinking Island Floating in a Sea Called Space -- 1 -- Hammer Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label:
Yoshitomo Nara's images of solitary, wide-eyed figures inspired by Japanese and American popular culture have achieved a cult-like status. Actively opposing atomic bombs and nuclear energy, Nara's images have been used in antinuclear protests. Though the artist almost never depicts specific individuals, School Strike for Climate (2019) is an exception. This painting immortalizes the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with her trademark braids and hand-painted protest sign. In August 2018 the then fifteen-year-old started a global movement by ditching school to camp out in front of the Swedish parliament with her now iconic sign. In September 2019 Thunberg inspired four million people to join a global strike, energizing the largest climate demonstration in history. Three days later she traveled by sailboat to the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City to encourage world leaders to support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the hopes of preventing global average temperatures from rising to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average temperature level, a critical threshold ultimately surpassed in 2023. Designated "the voice of the planet," Thunberg is known for blunt speeches that seek to motivate people to manifest the moral courage and determination that many adult world leaders lack.
While many of Nara's youthful characters may not be perceived as conveying overtly political statements, they are nevertheless informed by the political and ecological consciousness of their maker. Nara's portrait of Thunberg is paired with two new paintings conceived specifically for the present exhibition. Each one represents a variation on a "body-as-island" motif, which the artist has been exploring in recent years. They are based on quarantine-era drawings in which diminutive hooded figures, each appearing atop the same pair of floating heads, peer out into emptiness, prophesying a future in which nearby landmasses have vanished under the rising ocean.