Yoshitomo Nara “Drawings: 1988-2018 Last 30 Years”
Yoshitomo Nara’s solo exhibition “Drawings: 1988-2018 Last 30 Years.”
I was captivated by the overwhelming number of works — 350 in all. This culmination of a 30-year career was so rich and suggestive that, even when I thought I had taken in every piece, the messages I read from the works felt as though they might spill out of me. A truly substantial show.
https://art-on.jp/yoshitomonara-30years/
Buying a Work
The venue for this exhibition is “Kaikai Kiki Gallery” — the gallery managed, as you may know, by Takashi Murakami. Nara’s exhibition this time is held free of charge, with no admission tickets sold. Yes, this place is in fact an ordinary marketplace that sustains its operations through the buying and selling of works.
I visited on the opening day. I promptly asked a staff member about purchasing, and it seems there are three gallerists in charge of sales. Unfortunately, all of the staff were with customers, so I decided to wait a little until one of them was free.
How Much Are the Works?
Yoshitomo Nara’s works trade at high prices, chiefly on the auction market. Their prices are no longer within reach of ordinary people; such is his popularity that pieces can fetch sums in the hundreds of millions of yen.
About 350 works were on display in this exhibition. Of those, roughly 50 are said to be available for sale.
I already knew the prices were high, so — though it’s not the most tactful way to ask — I put the question to the salesperson: “Which is the easiest work to acquire (the lowest-priced one)?” My meaning got across at once, and the answer came in a low but clear voice: “There are two.” The gallerist led me to where the works were.
Work 1
The first is a work from 1996.
It’s hard to make out from the photo above…, but it’s the work circled in red in the photo below.
Of course it isn’t a set of three works — it’s one of them.
Here it is.
The work for sale is the leftmost one, “Onion.”
“Onion,” written small on a torn piece of paper. The endearing motif, colors, and lettering are quintessentially Nara. It’s a soft work that looks as if drawn with pencil, crayon, and watercolor.
I asked a staff member the price.
Yes — I was astonished.
1 million yen!!
All right, pulling myself together, on to the second work.
Work 2
The second work is from 2005.
Which one is it?
It’s the red circle in the photo below. Hard to make out from a distance, isn’t it.
Yes, this is the work.
Two child characters that seem to emerge, as if cut out, from the matte paper.
Here’s a close-up. Let me check this price too, just to be sure.
Yes — 1 million yen!!
A drawing pairing one of Nara’s signature characters with a caption I could maybe understand, but 1 million yen for such a tiny work is a stretch. Sorry for being a commoner….
Just in case, I asked whether payment in installments was possible.
“We’ll issue an invoice in three weeks, and it must be paid in full” — a merciless announcement (;｡;)
What About the Other Works?
Given such a surprising price for such a tiny work, I asked about the piece one step up, and the price apparently jumps straight to “4 million.” “I-I’m fine, thanks…” was all I could manage to say. My faint dream that I might just be able to buy one crumbled away. It seems that so-called ordinary drawings are basically priced from around 5 million yen.
Visiting Yoshitomo Nara’s solo exhibition. I asked the price of a work on the off chance and nearly fell over（ ; ; ）
His works of little girls are adorable and I love them, but the prices aren’t the least bit adorable…. #分割払いもNG pic.twitter.com/qOUk0l6P6j— art on β version (@burart_jp) February 9, 2018
Girl Drawings
At a group exhibition held in the summer of 2020 at BLUM&POE (Tokyo), drawings by Yoshitomo Nara were also shown.
There, quintessential Nara drawings featuring young girls were on display.
So, how much might this work be…?
Right: Yoshitomo Nara 《think about something》 2019 Pen and color pencil on paper 37.5 x 29.6 x 3.7 cm
75,000 USD → about 8 million yen!
Large-Scale Works
In October 2020, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art announced the acquisition of a large-scale work by Yoshitomo Nara — the 220cm×195cm piece 《Through the Break in the Rain》.
The purchase price was a stunning 110 million!
An extraordinary sum for a single painting, but it depicts Nara’s signature front-facing young-girl motif. It’s a magnificent work whose value would shoot up at once were it ever to enter general circulation.
We ordinary folk can enjoy it by buying posters and art books.
