Friday, August 14, 2009

Me Vs Nara...?



Who is Nara?...

Pop Art was emerged in the United States, mid 1950s in Britain and in the 1960s. Pop Art is a visual art movement and one of the major art movements of the twentieth century. Pop art is characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising and comic books which aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art nowadays.Such pop art's artist is Andy Warhol that also known as Prince of Pop Art.

Thus,Pop art has influenced many artists throughout the world and some of them are Japanese Pop artist, Yoshitomo Nara is one of the rise artists of the New Millennium and used children as a subject in almost all of his art, creates scenes of anger or rebellion through children. Nara’s work actually based by his recollection of chillhood happiness and traumatic, strong influenced of rock and punk music, Japanese Manga comics and the well-ordered structure of Japanese society.


Yoshitomo Nara was born 1959 in Hirosaki, Japan and currently lives and works in Tokyo. Nara received his B.F.A. (1985) and an M.F.A. (1987) from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. Between 1988 and 1993, Nara studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, in Germany. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. Nara is well known for exploring the tensions of a hyper consumer culture by using deceptively simple drawing, paintings and sculptures of cute and knowing children inspired by American cartoons, manga, rock 'n' roll and punk culture, which surrounded Nara while growing up in Japan.




According to Takashi Murakami, in his writing; Japanese Pop Art is unique and identifiable as Japanese because of the regular subjects and styles. The movement has been strongly influenced by postwar American pop art and by Western music and film. Like American Pop Art, Japanese Pop Art borrows from popular culture, consumer products and comic books, but also is heavily indebted to traditional Japanese art and animation. Some Pop artists from Japan have found fame in the United States, while many art experts recognize Japanese Pop Art as the most influential Pop Art movement in the world today.

Many Japanese pop artists take inspiration largely from anime, and sometimes ukiyo-e and traditional Japanese art. One of the best-known pop artists currently in Japan is Yoshitomo Nara famous for their graffiti-inspired art, and some, such as Takashi Murakami, are famous for mass-produced plastic or polymer figurines. Many pop artists in Japan use surreal or obscene, shocking images in their art, taken from Japanese hentai. This element of the art catches the eye of viewers young and old, and is extremely thought-provoking, but is not taken as offensive in Japan. A common metaphor used in Japanese pop art is the innocence and vulnerability of children and youth.

Nara is part of a generation of Japanese Pop artists who first rose to prominence in the mid-'90s. An attempt to define a modern, uniquely Japanese aesthetic, Japanese pop art is characterized by flat colors, crisp lines and irreverent subject matter. The movement employs the style and vocabulary of contemporary pop culture in order to both critique and celebrate it. Such prominent Japanese Pop artist, Takashi Murakami has dubbed this aesthetic "Superflat," referring not only to the traditional flatness of Japanese drawings and animation, but to the collapsing of hierarchies between fine art and commerce.

According by book, ART NOW (2002), Yoshitomo Nara is one of the rises artists in the millennium and most influential artists to emerge from Japan during the Pop art movement of the nineties. Nara's work mines the pop culture of his childhood. Growing up in Aomori Prefecture, he was a latchkey kid whose childhood companions were most often pets and the television. It's no wonder then that Nara's figures are usually alone, and that their bodies resemble the simple, rounded forms of early, animated classics like Astro Boy and Speed Racer more than the sleek, angular look of contemporary anime.

Nara’s employing a format that resembles the kitschiest of all consumer goods such as the commemorative plate. Nara suggests that fine art is just a larger, more expensive version of commercial products. And Nara's characters are just as likely to appear on a key chain or an ashtray as in a gallery or museum. This foray into consumer culture has helped him win an enthusiastic cult following, not only in Japan, but also in the United States and Europe. T-shirts emblazoned with his images are also even appeared on the TV shows Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


As well as being an artist, Nara is also a pop musician and a designer of T-shirts, CD covers, fanzines, buttons, dolls and other lifestyle products. In his work, he draws on a medley of sources, including pop culture, comic strips, manga Japanese and Western artistic traditions. Adored by everyone from art critics to punk kids, Nara's figures haunt galleries and museums and adorn T-shirts, CD cases, ashtrays and clocks. They are peppered now into the fabric of American pop culture. At the San Jose Museum of Art exhibiton entitle "Nothing Ever Happens, 2004" Nara's traveling solo exhibition, organized by the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art.

Yoshitomo Nara is not only famous in Japan and Europe, where he's exhibited in galleries and museums since the mid-'80s, but also in the United States. Nara has a rock-star-like appeal, and his career momentum is still on the upswing. At a Sotheby's auction this May, a 1999 Nara painting sold for $198,400, more than twice the pre-event estimate, firmly establishing Nara as a key figure in what some art professionals call the Japanese New Pop movement, a proliferating style and approach that incorporates and comments on iterations of kawaii, or cute.

Over the last few years, Nara has frequently collaborated on exhibitions with Japanese design collective Graf. Yoshitomo Nara and graf building the installation and they continue to explore an ongoing theme of the relationship between the individual and the space they inhabit, a work and it's environment, as well as art and life. In doing this, the artists hope to revive the idea of a narrative. The artists realise their goal by the completion of the 26th house, with a street name representative of the 26th letter of the alphabet, A-Z.

writer by Razlan Adnan(my final year thesis on UiTM)


Thursday, August 6, 2009

WARNA ARTISTS SHOW THEIR TRUE COLOUR


New Straits Times,Wednesday August 5,2009
by Nuradzimmah Daim & Halim Said


KUALA LUMPUR: A robot anime Doraemon made of scrap metal is just one of the many unusual pieces showcased at the '360 WARNA' exhibition at ArtSpace Gallery, Bangsar.The robot is the creation Ali Azraie Bebit,one of the five members of the artgroup,WARNA.
The four other members are Faizal Suhif,Azli Wahid,Halim Hassan and Razlan Adnan.

Azli has created sculptures of slippers and shoes;Razlan has made a doll khown as 'teru teru bozu' from paper,cloth and cotton;Faizal showcaseing his wood-based craft;Halim displaying his trademark pieces of arcylic on canvas.

The exhibition also features the works of three guest artists;Jamil Zakaria,Sukor Romat and Azharuddin Mappon.The exhibition was launched by filmmaker,U-Wei Saari,followed by reception attended by family and friends.

The WARNA artists in their 20s,are recent graduates of Universiti Teknologi Mara.All are from Johor with the exception of Razlan,who is from Selangor."We hope to reach out to as many peoples possible through this exhibition.These are our best works on display,"said Razlan.

Over 30 pieces of artworks are on displayed and available for sale.Price range between RM500 to Rm6000.The gallery is in Jalan Telawi 5,Bangsa Baru.The exhibition ends on Saturday.

360' WARNA




2ND WARNA ARTGROUP EXHIBITION-360 WARNA
LAUNCHED BY U-WEI HJ SAARI
AT ARTSPACE GALLERY,44-A JLN TELAWI 5,BANGSAR BARU 59100 KL...


Five young artists formed WARNA.They are Faizal Suhif,Azli Wahid,Ali Azraie Bebit,Halim Hassan and Razlan Adnan.The group started when they were students at the Universiti Teknologi Mara since 2006.Represented by four major disciplines in art;drawing,painting sculpture and printmaking.

Members in WARNA own their style and specialization to project artwork inspired by nature.Each and everyone support each other's work to suit and complement the concept of their work.

To enlighten their second exhibition,WARNA invited three other artist:Jamil Zakaria,Sukor Romat and Azharuddin Mappon.With the move from WARNA, it hopes that it would forward the group further in the Malaysian Art.


360' WARNA consists of all discipline of arts.It is a collaboration of each painting,drawing,print and sculpture formed by five young artists.They have been involved in many group exhibitions in the country as well as overseas.Currently active in promoting their group in the country,some of the members have already achieved their solo exhibitions.WARNA members are Faizal Suhif,Azli Wahid,Ali Azraie Bebit,Halim Hassan and Razlan Adnan.

As previous WARNA exhinition(WARNA:SMASH),they also invite other artists in the exhibition.360' WARNA,introduces their three artist friends;Jamil Zakaria,Sukor Romat and Azharuddin Mappon.

A creative printmaker,Faizal Suhif choose found object to use as block or mould to produce his work.Faizal continues the fish images and landscapes as references to his works.A brave attempt in his work and interesting combination of 'block' results an arrangement that birthed Tukang Cuci The technique applied is 'wood cut'.

Azli Wahid a sculptor,made sculpture using shoes as his subject matter.The hard stone is carved and manipulated as if it was soft and curvy to represent the character of a canvas shoes.Meanwhile,Ali Azraie Bebit continues to play around with his toys.He sticks to use metal combined with digital and technology tools such as camera,TV,radio and lighting.Razlan Adnan too,seems refuse to out grow his childhood memories.He continues working with his idols the Casper and Doraemon.He hopes that audience is able to share his excitement and joy with the new 'toys'.

Unlike other members,Halim Hassan moved from his ant series.In previous work,his used of lines were organic brush strokes.In the new paintings he uses energetic bright colours like red and dynamic geometric shapes.

Using the character of lines as his main subject,Jamil Zakaria successfully experiments his wire sculpture.Jamil uses wire to shape and form his sculpture the same as using lines in drawing.

Sukor Romat tries to explore the mystery of the universe in his abstract painting.Using arcylic on canvas he wanders on the canvas to produce magnificent colours.

In 'The Line and Shape',Azharuddin Mappon experiments lines and colours to create space on his canvas.The harmonious colour of 'Kain Pelekat,a cotton checked cloth inspired him.

WARNA is definitely an active group in exhibiting their arts.They are creative,always projecting new ideas in their work and never fail to improve.They work hard until they satisfied with the end work.Although they are new in the artscene their artworks have already steal the eyes of art lovers and collecters in the country.In general,360' WARNA potrays mature use of material,idea,composition and colour in their works.

-by Suzlee Ibrahim