Over the Rainbow

Manga meets Pop meets Zen in Over the Rainbow, the first combined presentation of Yoshitomo Nara and Hiroshi Sugito--close friends and stars of the Japanese contemporary art scene. Nara, born in 1959, is regarded as one of Japan's foremost contemporary artists, and has attained a cult status in his homeland that is hardly conceivable for European artists to reach. His signature paintings and drawings of children, often sporting grim gazes, that which recall the tradition of popular Japanese mangas, are among the most sought out items on the international art scene. His former student, Sugito, born in 1970, has also enjoyed great popularity in Japan. Sugito's delicate, finely-painted works are more subtle than Nara's and combine influences of Eastern and Western painting. The two artists completed the first of their joint works in 1997, and developed the idea for a joint exhibition and book project, Over the Rainbow, that same year. Eventually, in the summer of 2004, their goal was realized when Nara and Sugito were invited by the Austrian Galerie Belvedere to live and work in Vienna for three months. Over the Rainbow documents their visit: included are images of the artists at work, and the paintings and drawings that resulted from their collaboration.