Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
2411 Makiki Heights Drive
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
www.tcmhi.org
Completing its tour at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens, features over 150 paintings, sculptures, and drawings and works on paper from 1997 to 2003. In addition, exclusively for its presentation at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, the exhibition includes a multi-media slideshow of Nara’s photography. Tokyo-based Nara creates deceptively simple imagery that invites us to reconnect with the defiant spirit of youthful idealism and the desire to make a positive impact on the world. Like the punk rock music that inspires him, Nara’s work addresses feelings of alienation and invisibility in a world where it often seems like “nothing ever happens.”
In conjunction with Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens is Shaka Nara, a collaborative project directed by Nara with Hawaii artists Ryan Higa, Ryuta Nakajima, Koi Ozu, Cade Roster, David Tanji, and Jason Teraoka. The collaboration takes the form of a “hut” filling the museum’s John Young Gallery. Designed and constructed on site by the artists, the architectural structure is intended to resemble an artist’s studio containing personal belongings and artworks by each of the participating artists. Built from materials scavenged locally, the hut refers to the type of improvised, utilitarian structure one might come upon in rural areas of Hawaii. The visitor is invited to take a detour through the intimate studio, a physical space which also represents the mental and emotional space of artistic production. The incongruity of its presence within the clean, white space of the museum gallery is disorienting and evokes the solitude that artists both strive for and endure.
Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and was curated by Kristin Chambers.
Shaka Nara was organized by The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu and curated by TCM curator Michael Rooks.
Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens is sponsored by an anonymous donor with the additional support of the Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, The Japan Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, The Peter Norton Family Foundation, Nancy and Joel Portnoy and Jennifer McSweeney Reuss.
In Honolulu, in-kind support has been provided by The Waikiki Parc Hotel, Horizon Van Lines, and Jon Duarte Design Group. Additional programming made possible through the cooperation of the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California, and the University of Hawaii Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Endowment Special Projects grant, and the Department of Art and Art History.
Public Programs
Tokyo Metropolis
A Special Film Series in conjunction with the exhibition
co-presented by Cinema Paradise Film Festival
Friday May 13 – Thursday, May 19 www.cinemaparadise.org (venue TBA)
Nara College Day and Zine Fair
Saturday April 16
10:00am – 4:00pm
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
A Conversation with Yoshitomo Nara
Curator Michael Rooks in conversation with Yoshitomo Nara
Tuesday March 29
7:30pm
University of Hawaii Art Auditorium
Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens, Curator’s Gallery Talk
Gallery tour with exhibition curator Kristen Chambers
Sunday April 3
1:30pm
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
Yoshitomo Nara, Hello Kitty and other Japanese Pop Merchandising Phenomena
Lecture by Professor Christine Yano, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawaii
Tuesday April 12
7:30pm
University of Hawaii Art Auditorium
Superflat Children: Aesthetics and Politics in the Art of Nara Yoshitomo
Lecture by Marilyn Ivy, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
Tuesday April 26
7:30pm
University of Hawaii Art Auditorium
