More than 150 paintings, sculptures, and hard-to-categorize treasures drop into London for the artist’s first U.K. exhibition, on view through August 31.

Walk into the Hayward Gallery and every wall stares back. Big-eyed children, scrawled slogans, a watchful papier-mâché dog: the largest European survey of Yoshitomo Nara has landed with more than four decades of work on show.
Who is Nara? Born in Aomori in 1959, he finished an MFA at Aichi University of the Arts, moved to Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1988, lived in Cologne, and returned to Japan in 2000. Those miles, and a lifetime of late-night radio, still vibrate under every surface.

Curator Yung Ma lets the pieces mingle rather than march by year. Nara himself calls the approach “anything goes,” a fitting frame for paintings, cardboard sketches, and ceramics that refuse tidy categories.




Highlights come fast. “My Drawing Room,” a shrunken studio cluttered with vinyl sleeves and coffee cups, drops visitors into the artist’s after-hours routine. Nearby, “Fountain of Life,” a tower of ceramic heads in steady tears, turns sorrow into sculpture. Politics stay close to the skin. A girl in a “NO WAR” tee grips a guitar like a shield, lyrics hide in the margins, and the peace movement hums beneath the paint.


“Yoshitomo Nara” runs at Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, from 10 June to 31 August 2025. Tickets start at £20; members enter free.