Ashtray by Yoshitomo Nara, Y2K

I have a soft spot for the pieces that don’t behave, and this is a perfect example. Porcelain ashtray by Yoshitomo Nara, featuring one of his signature defiant figures perched on a diving board, casually flipping off life with the phrase “Fuck the Rotten World.” It’s that perfect Nara tension: sweet, subversive, and wild. A small but pointed piece - sharp, collectible, and unapologetically cool. Creamy glazed porcelain with a clean, minimal form, the graphic is crisp and beautifully printed. Equal parts art object and functional design, this work sits comfortably in that late 90s/Y2K moment when artist editions blurred into everyday life.

1¼ h × 4 diameter 

Yoshitomo Nara is one of Japan’s most recognizable contemporary artists, known for his deceptively simple, emotionally charged images of children and animals, figures that oscillate between vulnerability and quiet menace. Raised in rural northern Japan, his solitary childhood, along with deep influences from music and nature, continues to inform his introspective, subversive visual language. After completing his MFA in Japan, Nara studied in Germany at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and remained there through the 1990s, later gaining international recognition for his work across painting, sculpture, drawing, and design objects. His work is held in major institutional collections worldwide, and he continues to live and work in Tokyo.