His paintings, sculptures and films are populated with repeating motifs and evolving characters of his own creation. Along with dystopian themes and contemporary references, he revitalizes narratives of transcendence continuing the maverick legacy of a group of eighteenth-century Japanese artists known as the Edo eccentrics.
Change the Rule! reveals myriad variations of Murakami's images, each combination generating a new meaning. His first character, Mr. DOB, appears in pink and blue, floating against a platinum background; he gazes wide-eyed ahead into a sculpture of synthetic fiber-reinforced plastic; and he melts and transforms into Tan Tan Bo aka Gerotan: after vomiting five viscera and six viscera together with a mass of ego, he swallows them again in his empty stomach as everything disperses in the void; during the process he begins his journey into meditation. (2018), a mural-sized painting in which the DOB, with eye spinners, explodes with countless permutations of itself. Large painted and painted sculptures of Kaikai (a white, rabbit-like character) and Kiki (a pink, three-eyed figure) further underscore Murakami's interest in paradox, as the adjective kikikaikai describes something that is dangerous yet attractive .
Having participated in The Doraemon Exhibitions-group show in Japan in 2002 and 2017 of contemporary artworks inspired by the famous manga character, a time-traveling feline robot who befriends a boy named Nobita Nobi-Murakami has produced new paintings depicting Nobita and Doraemon waving in front of Anywhere Door, a device that allows its user to teleport. Surrounded by colorful smiling flowers, the portal opens onto a floor of glittering gold. Three shaped canvases show Doraemon from the back, his outline filled with clusters of more smiling flowers.
Granting entry through Anywhere Door, Doraemon and Nobita are bizarre parallels to a pair of mythical animals that often guard the entrances to Buddhist temples. One of the animals (known as a komainu) is usually a lion, derived from the Chinese lion motif (karajishi), whose roots can be traced to the Egyptian sphinx. In The Lion of the Realm That Transcends Death (2018), Murakami paints a karajishi resting on an arched bridge of polychrome skulls. The painting One encounters a multitude of hardships and disasters along the way to the netherworld, yet this process allows one to take the proper form of a human being and thus attain Buddhahood. (2018) contains further references to Nihonga subjects: a white elephant borrowed from the work of Edo period artist Itō Jakuchū emerges from an immense panorama of immortal hermits, maidens, birds, children and more, set in an ocean vibrant and swirling.
Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, where he lives and works. Collections include the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Australia; PinchukArtCentre, Kiev; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent institutional exhibitions include Murakami Versailles, Château de Versailles, France (2010); Murakami-Ego, Qatar Museums Authority, Doha (2012); Arhat Cycle, Royal Palace, Milan (2014); Murakami: 500 Arhats, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2015); Murakami by Murakami, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2017); Takashi Murakami: The Deep End of the Universe, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Takashi Murakami. Under Radiation Falls, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); Octopus eats its leg, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2017, visited Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, and Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, in 2018). Murakami is the founder of Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd., an art production and art management company, which both produces his work and functions as a supportive environment for emerging artists.
When I manage to snatch the tail of an idea, I must then transport a fragment of it to a completely different region of my brain. . . Once a deadline is met, that region can relax, so I graft the new idea onto that relaxed region in order to nurture and grow it. This is the process I endlessly repeat, and as such, I can never see the end of it; each day of unease is followed by another, and only for a moment when a project is complete do I get to experience a modicum of liberation. As a distant result of such a thankless, humorless repetition, interesting works get made.
Takashi Murakami
The exhibition is open from 20 September to 10 November 2018 – Gagosian Hong Kong.
Image:
Takashi Murakami, The Lion of the Kingdom that Transcends Death, 2018
Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 59 ⅛ × 118 ⅛ inches (150 × 300 cm)
© 2018 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved
