Yoshitomo Nara and the dark side of Japanese 'cuteness'

How Japan's "most famous" artist, and others, are subverting the country's cute "kawaii" aesthetic to question the world we live in. More than a millennium ago, the Japanese empress Fujiwara no Teishi gifted one of her court ladies, Sei Shōnagon, a bundle of fine paper. Sei, who was from a literary family, used the pages to jot down observations from her daily life in a collection now known as The