Yoshitomo Nara

No one out there looks like Yoshitomo Nara. The Japanese artist has created an aesthetic that is entirely his own over the course of his four-decade career, a lifetime filled with big-eyed, cartoony punk rock figures and weird, haunting but adorable animals. Now he’s getting his dues with a major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. His first show at a public institution in the UK, it will apparently feature not only drawing and painting but installation work too. A mixture of childlike innocence and aggressive rebellion, Nara’s work is mysterious, unsettling, adorable, political and totally unique – it will be a genuine highlight of the summer.