Yoshitomo Nara - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, May 16, 2014 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    Cleveland, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Nothing Ever Happens, September 12, 2003 – January 4, 2004, then traveled to Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (January 24 – April 4, 2004), San Jose, San Jose Museum of Art (July 24 – October 24, 2004), St. Louis, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri (December 3, 2004 – February 26, 2005); Honolulu, Contemporary Museum, Honolulu (March 25 – May 22, 2005)

  • Literature

    N. Miyamura and S. Suzuki, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, Works on Paper, Vol. II, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011, cat no. D-2003-002, pp. 199, 375 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Yoshitomo Nara’s oeuvre is characterized by his constant and varied investigation of the human condition as illustrated and elucidated through his depiction of children in the guise of adults. Associated with Japan’s Pop Art movement in the 1990s and drawing inspiration from a variety of sources such as punk and rock music, Manga illustrations, 20th century children’s books and Giotto, Nara works to express outwardly his innermost feelings evoking his childhood, and being mostly concerned with his personal difficulties in relating to the outside world.

    Soldier is one of the few works by Nara which completely removes the figure from its original childlike surroundings. However, this “soldier” encircled as she is by flowery clouds and shrubbery, seems to be more playacting than actually engaged in warfare. The rigid conformity and deference to authority are aspects of both childhood and soldiering with which the artist has always taken grievance. Here he has conflated the two to create a new alternate reality where the child and soldier exist as individual entities living concurrently within this world of the artist’s creation.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, MINNEAPOLIS

181

Soldier

2003
acrylic, colored pencil on paper
28 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (71.8 x 51.4 cm.)
Signed and dated "Nara 2003" on the reverse.

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Sold for $137,000

Contact Specialist
Amanda Stoffel
Head of Day Sale
astoffel@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1261

Contemporary Art Day Sale

New York 16 May 2014 11am