Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami (Tokyo, 1962) is one of the most influential artists to emerge from postwar Japan.

Murakami earned his Bachelor’s in Nihonga (Japanese traditional painting) from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1990 he entered the world of contemporary art under the guidance of his friend and fellow artist, Masato Nakamura. In 1993 he created his alter ego, Mr. DOB, and began to garner recognition in Japan and abroad for his particular synthesis between traditional Japanese art, contemporary movements in his country such as anime and manga, and American culture, mainly the Pop movement. He was became billed as the Japanese Andy Warhol.

His work covers a broad range of art forms, including painting, sculpture, industrial design, anime, fashion and other media and merchandise in popular culture.

Murakami belongs to a generation of artists that came to prominence on the crest of the late 1980s’ economic upswing in Japan and whose pictorial language brings together motifs linked to popular culture.

His work takes a critical look at contemporary Japanese society, the legacy of the country’s cultural tradition, how it developed after the World War 2, and its relationship with the western world, particularly the US.

In his own writings, Murakami coined the artistic style of 'Superflat,' a term that also refers to his own artwork. While the concept is characterized by its two-dimensionality, it also blurs the boundary between high art and low art.

His trilogy of “Superflat” exhibitions: Superflat (2000), Takashi Murakami: Kaikai Kiki (2002) and Little Boy (2005) have been on show in prominent museums around the world, including the Parco Gallery in Tokyo, The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, and the Serpentine Gallery in London. In 2008 and 2009 the artist’s work is celebrated in ©MURAKAMI, a major retrospective now on view at the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum until May. The exhibit has already been seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Brooklyn Museum, New York, and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt.

Institutions including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Queensland Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, all house artwork by this multifaceted artist. In addition to his collaborative projects in the areas of industrial design, music and fashion, Murakami is also a curator, patron of the arts, critic and organizer of art fairs.

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