村上隆

Murakami Takashi was born in Tokyo in 1962. He enrolled in the Department of Japanese-style Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1981, and was the first student ever to earn a doctorate in Japanese painting from that university in 1993. Murakami became active as a contemporary artist while enrolled in the doctoral program. The roots of his distinctive artistic vision are deeply embedded in the Japanese manga and anime that enthralled him from early childhood, as exemplified by Mr. DOB, an original character Murakami unveiled at his early solo exhibition “Which Is Tomorrow? — Fall in Love” at SCAI the Bathhouse in Tokyo in 1994. The character critically deconstructs the ubiquity and endless reproduction of kitschy icons in a culture dominated by overconsumption. In the exhibition catalogue, the critic Matsui Midori observed that “Murakami possesses the ability to exploit commodities or strategies of consumer society, to reflect the spiritual emptiness at its core, or to capture the drift of amorphous desire,” (note 1) and interpreted Mr. DOB as a symbol of capitalist economies reflecting Murakami’s “interest in repetition and promulgation.” (note 2) From the outset of his career, Murakami sought to unlock new potential for contemporary art derived not from high culture or Western art but from Japanese subcultures. This approach aligned with an evolving image of the artist within the burgeoning contemporary art scene, which had been propelled by post-Cold War global economic forces since 1989. This era was marked by the emergence of watchwords such as pluralism and multiculturalism, with artists of different races, ethnicities, sexes, gender identities, and class backgrounds gaining global recognition. This trend is clearly reflected in Murakami’s recollections of his year-long stay in New York City in 1994, supported by the Asian Cultural Council (headquartered in New York), in which he noted that “there was growing discourse on the theme of ‘center and periphery,’ laying the groundwork for minority artists such as myself to make our debuts.” (note 3) In this cultural milieu, Murakami endeavored to convey Japan’s unique context through his works, integrating elements of “Japanese art history, ‘manga,’ ‘anime,’ ‘otakudom,’ ‘J-POP’ culture, post-war history, and imported accounts of contemporary art” to cultivate the “standard of ‘beauty’” at the “core” of his practice. In particular, he saw in Japan’s 1980s otaku (geek) subculture the potential to decode images of the Japanese populace in the postwar era, and embarked on production of life-sized figurative sculptures, including the “Project Ko2” series and the iconic early works “HIROPON” and “My Lonesome Cowboy,” which critically appropriate otaku desires and aesthetics. In 1999, amid growing academic interest in Murakami’s work, he had a solo show at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) in New York State. Featuring his paintings, sculptures, and character merchandise, the exhibition illustrated his strategy of circulating works through various media and blurring the lines between art and commerce. This methodology eventually led to a collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2002. Murakami also showed his work at the 1999–2000 edition of the prestigious American exhibition series the Carnegie International. Murakami’s theory of “Superflat” is integral to any discussion of his artistic identity. The concept, which exerted significant global impact in the 2000s, intriguingly emerged not in the context of art-focused media but rather in the monthly magazine “Kōkoku hihyō” (Advertising Review), which critiqued mass media such as television commercials and ads. In a special feature titled “TOKYO POP” (April 1999 issue), Murakami published “Greetings, You Are Alive: TOKYO POP Manifesto,” positing that Japan’s distinctive cultural expressions are most vividly manifested in the postwar mass culture fostered under American influence — culture marked by childishness, lack of cultural hierarchy, and the flourishing of amateurism during the economic bubble era (c. 1986–1991). (note 5) The TOKYO POP manifesto also outlined a more literal meaning of Superflat, referencing a tradition of thoroughly flat treatment of pictorial space that can be traced from Japan’s “eccentric painters” of the Edo period (1603–1868) up to contemporary animators such as Kanada Yoshinori. By associating the planarity of traditional Japanese painting, manga, and anime with the banal superficiality of consumer culture, Murakami advanced an intersectional theory of art and society. While rooted in distinctly Japanese phenomena, this discourse also spoke to the postmodern blurring of lines between “high” and “low” culture and art and commerce, drawing widespread attention within the art world both in Japan and overseas. In 2000, Murakami began curating the Superflat Trilogy series of exhibitions both in Japan and abroad, giving tangible form to his theoretical insights. The first exhibition, “Superflat,” debuted in Japan before touring three American locations in 2001 including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and caused a sensation everywhere it went. The show’s curator Michael Darling underscored the versatility of the Superflat concept, noting its relevance not only to art and popular culture but also to architecture, fashion, gender, postwar Japanese history, and the broader dynamics of cultural globalization, making it a touchstone for both international art historians and researchers of Japanese culture and society (note 6). The trilogy continued in 2002 with “Coloriage (Takashi Murakami, Kaikai Kiki),” at Fondation Cartier in Paris, which challenged established art norms from a Japanese subcultural perspective based on the assertion that culture is not about coloring inside the lines but about drawing new ones. In 2005, Murakami presented the trilogy’s conclusion, “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture,” at the Japan Society Gallery in New York City. Named after the codename of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the exhibition not only showcased contemporary Japanese art and otaku culture but also displayed a copy of the war-renouncing Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, offering a bird’s-eye view of Japanese culture through the lens of World War II’s aftermath, the trauma of the atomic bomb, and the notion of the Japanese as underdeveloped and weakened by defeat at the hands of the US. The exhibition’s proximity to the United Nations headquarters, a symbol of postwar commitment to global peace, may have lent additional gravity to the themes explored. The exhibition was honored with the Best Thematic Museum Show in New York City award by the American branch of the International Association of Art Critics. Subsequently, the major retrospective “© MURAKAMI” traveled to four venues in Europe and the US (including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) from 2007 to 2009, surveying the entirety of Murakami’s career thus far. The exhibition provoked debate by subverting the traditional “purity” of nonprofit museums with its blatant commercialism, embodied by a boutique showcasing products made in collaboration with Louis Vuitton. In light of the recent trend toward ever-stronger ties between contemporary artists and luxury brands, this gambit was not merely a provocation, but illustrated Murakami’s foresight with regard to contemporary art’s trajectory. An expansive solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in 2010, which placed anime-inspired works at the historic site emblematic of the reign of King Louis XIV, cemented his status as a preeminent global artist. In the 2010s, Murakami’s style began to evolve significantly. In the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he conceived “The 500 Arhats,” a monumental painting nearly 100 meters in length which reimagines Kano Kazunobu’s 19th-century Buddhist painting “Five Hundred Arhats” (housed at Zojoji Temple, Tokyo) for the current era. Murakami’s work explored the power of religious art to memorialize the dead and instill hope in the despairing. His engagement with Japanese art history deepened through projects like “Nippon e-awase” (lit. “Japanese painting contest,”) a pictorial and verbal dialogue with scholar Tsuji Nobuo serialized in “Geijutsu Shinchō” magazine starting in 2009, and the related 2017 exhibition “Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics — A Collaboration with Nobuo Tsuji and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Works such as “Qinghua” 青花 (Blue Flower) (2022), inspired by fish motifs from Yuan dynasty Chinese porcelain, signal a shift from Pop aesthetics towards meditation on art’s intrinsic, timeless, and universal values in a contemporary art context. In recent years, Murakami has continued to disrupt established perceptions of contemporary art and broadened its horizons through collaborations with the late Virgil Abloh and active participation in street art and NFTs. These latest endeavors are fully in line with the earliest phase of his career, during which he produced strikingly original works rooted in manga and anime and forged a narrative with enduring global relevance. (Yahagi Manabu / Translated by Christopher Stephens) (Published online: 2024-05-28) Notes 1. Matsui Midori, ‘Murakami Takashi: Nihilist Agonistes,’ “Which Is Tomorrow? — Fall in Love,” Tokyo: Shiraishi Contemporary Art, 1994, p. 23. 2. Ibid., p. 29. 3. Murakami Takashi, “Murakami Takashi kanzen tokuhon: Bijutsu techo zenkiji, 1992–2012” (Murakami Takashi: The Complete “Bijutsu Techo” Archives, 1992–2012), Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2012, p. 40. 4. Murakami Takashi, ‘Life as a Creator,’ “Takashi Murakami: Summon Monsters? Open the Door? Heal? Or Die?” Tokyo: Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., 2001, p. 130. 5. Murakami Takashi, ‘Greetings, You Are Alive: TOKYO POP Manifesto,’ “Kokoku hihyo,” April 1999, pp. 58–59. 6. Michael Darling, ‘Plumbing the Depths of Superflatness,’ “Art Journal,” vol. 60, no. 3, Autumn 2001, pp. 76–89.