Takashi Murakami
The Japanese neo-pop art artist Takashi Murakami (b. 1962) grew up in Tokyo and developed a special interest in manga (traditional Japanese comic drawings) and anime (hand-drawn animated films). Out of dissatisfaction with the art market and the general cultural flattening, he develops a style that he cynically defines as Superflat. His art consists of large two-dimensional surfaces with uniform colours, filled with Japanese cartoon characters and recognisable icons from popular culture. These wall-filling compositions are accompanied by striking sculptures; sometimes with the same busy colour patterns, sometimes entirely different from them and evenly finished in gold or silver. In this way, Murakami creates a busy biotope that is seemingly teeming with vibrancy, but behind which lie emptiness, superficiality and nihilism. To emphasise this, he uses the commercial market principles of Pop Art and has his designs reproduced from his studio as a mass product. Luc Tuymans points to the extreme PR idea behind this process; a practice that was initiated by Rubens during the Baroque by working with assistants and executors in different workshops.
Text: Hans Willemse
Translations: Michael Meert