YOSHITOMO NARA

The Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (*1959) is one of the best-known Japanese artists of his generation. He attracted international attention early on with his "Angry Girls", highly stylized depictions of girls who confront the viewer head-on with an evil eye and flashing teeth. Aggressive and at the same time naive, snotty and at the same time sweet: the childlike scheme used is reminiscent of the aesthetics of Japanese comics and cartoons, the so-called mangas. In Japan today, mangas represent an important part of literature and the media landscape, they are regarded as a very successful Japanese cultural export and their roots go back to the Middle Ages.

The exhibition is a cooperation between the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Museum Frieder Burda and the Hayward Gallery London.