Image Not Available
for Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami
Japanese, born 1962
Japanese painter and sculptor. He studied at Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music (BFA 1986, MFA 1988, PhD 1993). Murakami began to gain recognition as a sculptor in the early 1990s. Drawing on Minimalism and conceptual art, his work often explored the clash between contemporary Japanese and American culture. Sea Breeze (1992), which was made in response to an island location, consists of a large trailer with shutters that open to emit a powerful light; it suggests something of the aggressive, sardonic character of his work, as well as the influence of commercial display. In the late 1990s Murakami gained more recognition as a painter, and began to blend abstraction and cartoon imagery in highly coloured images painted in flat space. Some works are abstract: Cream (1998) depicts a long skein of blue-white seminal fluid flying across a pink backdrop. Others, such as The Castle of Tin Tin (1998) depict monstrous spiralling totems with bulbous heads, often spouting colourful fluids. This style was expanded into other media: the Polyrhythm series of the late 1990s consists of erotic, even scatological, fibreglass sculptures of cartoon characters. He also created a series of slightly larger than life-size fibreglass sculptures including My Lonesome Cowboy (1998), a masturbating boy, and Hiropon (1997), a young woman squeezing her oversized breasts which shoot out milk like a lasso.
Other recurring motifs and characters in Murakami’s work include grinning multicoloured flowers, eyeball-covered mushrooms, and DOB, a smiling blue figure first created in 1993 that has been reproduced into key chains, t-shirts, watches and mugs. Highly influenced by manga and anime drawn from Japan’s otaku subculture, which is characterized by geeks or nerds immersed in comic books and science fiction, Murakami’s figures allure viewers and consumers alike in their extreme cuteness with their oversized heads as well as their fantastical and almost grotesque nature with their sexually exaggerated and alien-like forms. Trained in traditional nihon-ga painting, Murakami’s work has been described as a successful combination of Western with Japanese techniques, and the traditional with the contemporary. He also popularized the term ‘Superflat’, a word used to describe the two-dimensional and flat quality of culture in contemporary Japan, with a series of three exhibitions he curated: Superflat at MOCA, Los Angeles in 2001; Coloriage (‘Colouring’) at the Fondation Cartier, Paris in 2002; and Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture at the Japan Society, New York in 2005. The latter was also critical of the influence of the United States on Japan’s postwar history and culture.
Murakami’s view of art as entertainment and commerce coupled with his entrepreneurial spirit led to the establishment of Hiropon Factory in 1996, which eventually became Kaikai Kiki Co. in 2001. Partly inspired by Andy Warhol’s Factory and Damien Hirst’s masterful self-branding, Murakami’s company assists in the production of his artworks and handles all the merchandising. Kaikai Kiki Co. also supports the growth and development of contemporary art in Japan by managing and promoting the careers of young Japanese artists and featuring their work in the biannual art fair GEISAI, which began in 2002. The success of Murakami’s art-as-business venture received acclaim as well as some criticism as he continued to blur the distinction between high art and mass-produced commodity; displayed among the artworks in the exhibition Copyright Murakami at MOCA, Los Angeles (2007–8) were Louis Vuitton handbags that the artist designed, available for purchase.
Morgan Falconer and Mary Chou. "Murakami, Takashi." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T097680 (accessed May 8, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
