Sketchbook Week
Even though Yoshitomo Nara has never been a favorite, I really like this book. It’s a book of sketches and drawings on all different scraps of paper. It seems like they reproduced the papers at actual size which is so pleasing. It’s nice that the cover collage continues on the back of the book jacket also. I love all the paper colors and textures and I enjoy the cute drawings so much more this way. Maybe because they are not considered serious works of contemporary art here and don’t need to be anything else but cute sketches. I feel like mean-spirited cute characters are only interesting for so long. Please comment if you disagree and prove me wrong. Sometimes I feel like I am missing something? He has such a cult following and there are countless books of his work. I do think the sculptures are very cool and there is a clock I once considered buying so it’s not like I think he’s bad at all-just a tiny bit over-rated. In any case this book is very well done and you will enjoy even if you aren’t a huge Nara fan like me.

That concludes sketchbook week. I still have a few others that fit the topic so I’ll have to do another week sometime.

© Julia Rothman 2007