{"id":116134,"date":"2025-11-03T19:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116134\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T19:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:48:08","slug":"david-zwirner-now-represents-yoshitomo-nara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116134\/","title":{"rendered":"David Zwirner Now Represents Yoshitomo Nara"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDavid Zwirner<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s largest galleries, announced Monday that it would now be the official representative of the work of artist Yoshitomo Nara<\/a>. Nara will have his first solo exhibition with Zwirner at one of the gallery\u2019s New York spaces.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal for Zwirner to represent Nara comes via the artist\u2019s international agent Joe Baptista, via his Equivalence Art Agency. Until earlier this year, Baptista was a partner at Pace Gallery<\/a>, Nara\u2019s longtime representative.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Pace Gallery, Nara was long represented by Blum, which helped introduce his work to the US. Blum\u2019s last show with Nara, at the gallery\u2019s Tokyo space, closed this past March, a few months before dealer Tim Blum closed<\/a> his gallery entirely.<\/p>\n

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\n\tPace, which mounted its first solo for Nara in 2013, had not previously announced Baptista\u2019s departure from the gallery. Zwirner\u2019s press release, however, notes that \u201cPace Gallery will continue to have a relationship with the artist.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an email to ARTnews, Pace CEO Marc Glimcher said, \u201cWe are so proud of everything we have done for Yoshitomo Nara. Looking back on our 14 years of working together, we would not do anything differently and as such this development is a little surprising, but we understand that in this environment things happen. We remain undying fans of the work and look forward to collaborating with the artist on future projects. We wish for a great relationship between him and David.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement about joining Zwirner, Nara said, \u201cNow, I feel fortunate to present the works I will be creating under the guidance of a gallerist who, though born and raised in a different place, shares the same generation and the spirit of the era we both lived through\u2014including its subcultures. I am also aware that this good fortune rests upon the many layers of good fortune that have carried me this far.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNara is best-known for distinctive style of portraiture that often features moody young girls with banged hair. In addition to his well-known painting practice, he also works in drawing, sculpture, and architectural installations. Nara studied in both Japan, where he was born in 1959, and Germany, where he lived for over a decade beginning in the later 1980s.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe is currently the subject of a survey at the Orange County Museum of Art in California. His most recent traveling retrospective debuted at Guggenheim Bilbao in 2024 and closed at the Hayward Gallery in London this past Stepmber. He also had a retrospective that opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2021 and later traveled to the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. His work has been featured in the 2025 Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale, 2018 Gwangju Biennale, the 2018 Bangkok Art Biennale, and the 2006 Shanghai Biennale.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis work also frequently sells for high prices at auction. Nara\u2019s auction record is currently $25 million, set during a 2019 evening sale in Hong Kong. Last month, Nara\u2019s Haze Days (1988) was offered<\/a> during a Christie\u2019s evening sale in London with an estimate of \u00a36.5 million\u2013\u00a38.5 million ($8.7 million\u2013$11.4 million); the work did not find a buyer.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, gallery founder David Zwirner said that he has been a Nara fan since first encountering the work in the early 1990s in Cologne, where Nara was living at the time. \u201cNara\u2019s work seemed so radical to me then, as it ran counter to the postconceptual strategies that were pervasive in the art world at the time,\u201d Zwirner said in a statement. \u201cInstead, Nara invited us to contemplate a world of vulnerability and genuine human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his statement, Zwirner described seeing the Hayward Gallery retrospective as a \u201ctrue revelation,\u201d adding, \u201cAgain, I was struck by Nara\u2019s enormous generosity as an artist; he readily invites us into his inner universe, while challenging us to confront our own, reminding us that we have the right to resist. I am deeply honored to welcome Yoshitomo Nara, one of the most important and authentic voices in contemporary culture, to the gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUpdated, November 3, 2025: This article has been updated to include a statement from Marc Glimcher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Zwirner, one of the world\u2019s largest galleries, announced Monday that it would now be the official representative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,19406,501,156,82581,111,139,69,52374,32961],"class_list":{"0":"post-116134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-david-zwirner","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-gallery-representation","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-pace-gallery","20":"tag-yoshitomo-nara"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}