Такаси Мураками: Жапон суретшісінің өнері мен әлемі

Japanese artist (born 1962)
the artist

Takashi Murakami (村上 隆) is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. His influential work draws from the aesthetic characteristics of the Japanese artistic tradition and the nature of postwar Japanese culture. He designed the album covers for Kanye West's third studio album Graduation and West and Kid Cudi’s collaborative studio album Kids See Ghosts. Murakami is the founder and President of Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., through which he manages several younger artists. He was the founder and organizer of the biannual art fair Geisai.

Murakami was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. From early on, he was a fan of anime and manga (Japanese cartoons and comics respectively), and hoped to work in the animation industry. He attended Tokyo University of the Arts to acquire the drafting skills necessary to become an animator, but eventually majored in Nihonga, the 'traditional' style of Japanese painting that incorporates traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and subjects. He earned his master's degree in 1988. Though he would go on to earn a Ph. D. in Nihonga (1993), he gradually became disillusioned with its insular, highly political world and started to explore more contemporary artistic styles, media, and strategies. Murakami was dissatisfied with the state of contemporary art in Japan, believing it to be "a deep appropriation of Western trends." Thus, much of his early work was done in the spirit of social criticism and satire. On an article naming and explaining all of Murakami's pieces lies the infamous My Lonesome Cowboy, a companion to his earlier Hiropon. The sculpture is that of a naked anime character with blond spiky hair with a spiral trail of semen circling him. This piece is Murakami's most expensive piece to date selling for $15,100,000 at Sotheby's New York auction in 2008. Efforts from this period include performance art (Osaka Mixer Project, 1992), parodies of the "message" art popular in Japan in the early '90s, (Dobozite Dobozite Oshamanbe, 1993), and conceptual works (e. g. Randoseru Project, 1991). He also began developing his own pop icon, "Mr. DOB", which would later develop into a form of self portraiture, the first of several endlessly morphing and recurring motifs seen throughout his work. Though he garnered attention, many of his early pieces were not initially well received in Japan.

In 1994, Murakami received a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council and participated in the PS1 International Studio Program in New York City for a year. During his stay, he was exposed to and highly inspired by Western contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and especially the simulationism of artists such as Jeff Koons. He established a small studio, which, together with the Hiropon Factory in Japan, became the precursor to his company Kaikai Kiki. After returning to Japan, he would develop the core concepts behind his artistic practice and begin exhibiting regularly at major galleries and institutions across Europe and America.

From 2007 to 2009, Murakami's first retrospective ©Murakami traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles (its multi disciplinary approach to contemporary art), to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, and lastly the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. Sarah Thornton tracks the early stages of the exhibition's planning, including in depth curatorial meetings between Murakami and prominent museum figures, in Seven Days in the Art World. The exhibition earned widespread attention for, among other things, including a fully functioning Louis Vuitton boutique as one of the exhibits. In 2008, Murakami was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People", the only visual artist included. In September 2010 Murakami became the third contemporary artist, and first Japanese, to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles in France, filling 15 rooms and the park with his sculptures, paintings, a decorative carpet, and lamps. On June 21, 2011, Google featured a doodle tagged as "First Day of Summer" which was created by Murakami. This was accompanied by a Winter Solstice doodle for the Southern Hemisphere. In February 2012, Murakami opened an exhibition in Doha, Qatar. Titled Murakami Ego, this showed around 60 old works alongside new ones designed especially for the exhibition. Among the new ones, a 100 metre long wall painting depicting the suffering of the Japanese people after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In March 2013, livetune released a PV, directed by Murakami, for Redial, featuring Hatsune Miku. In April 2013, Murakami's first feature film was released in theaters across Japan. Jellyfish Eyes (originally titled "Me me me no kurage)) is a live action movie featuring CGI characters designed by Murakami called Friend. In 2019, Murakami was working on his own album of original folk songs, inspired by Japanese group Happy End.

Murakami's art encompasses a wide range of media and is generally described as superflat. It has been noted for its use of color, incorporation of motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture, flat/glossy surfaces, and content that could be described at once as "cute", "psychedelic", or "satirical". Among his best known recurring motifs are smiling flowers, Mr. DOB, mushrooms, skulls, Buddhist iconography, and the sexual complexes of otaku culture. One of Murakami's most famous pieces known as 'Hiropon' brings to light his embrace of otaku culture. The sculpture that was created in 2001 is said to show the "otaku culture and its strange, shocking sexuality in full force". The concept of the smiling flowers was revealed in an interview to be "evoked repressed, contradictory emotions and collective trauma of Japanese locals triggered by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings back in 1945." In addition to large paintings such as 727 (permanent collection Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Tan Tan Bo Puking – a. k. a. Gero Tan, he has also produced sculptures, balloons, 'all over' wallpaper installations, animated works, prints, posters, and assorted merchandise. In order to create something rooted in his own Japanese culture and history but still fresh and valid internationally, he began searching for something that could be considered 'uniquely Japanese.' After concluding that elements of 'high' art were confounding at best, he began to focus on Japan's 'low' culture, especially anime and manga, and the larger subculture of otaku. His artistic style and motifs (cute [kawaii]/disturbing anime esque characters rendered in bright colors, flat and highly glossy surfaces, life size sculptures of anime figurines) derived from this strategy. Hiropon (1997), satirical sculpture, standing a bit over 7 feet tall, of an anime character with oversized lactating breasts whose milk stream forms a jump rope made of fiberglass, sold for $427,500 at Christie's auction house in May 2002. Miss ko2 (1996), a 6 foot tall model of an anime inspired blonde girl in a red and white maid outfit, was sold for $567,500 in 2003, and was put up for auction in 2010, In May 2008, My Lonesome Cowboy (1998), an anime inspired sculpture of a masturbating boy whose semen stream forms a lasso, sold for $15.2 million at Sotheby's, making it his most highly valued piece. Murakami's current net worth is estimated to be around US$100 million, and the value of his works continue to rise in today's market.

Murakami has incorporated his operations as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. in Japan (2001), Kaikai Kiki New York, LLC in New York (2001), and Kaikai Kiki LA, LLC in Los Angeles (2010). The name "Kaikai Kiki" (カイカイキキ) which means "brave, strong and sensitive", was borrowed from a critic in the late 17th century who used it to describe the paintings of Eitoku Kano. Kaikai Kiki executes Murakami's wide range of artistic endeavors and consists of both offices and production studios. In addition to handling the production and promotion of Murakami's artwork and projects, the company manages the careers of young artists, organizes international art projects, produces and promotes merchandise, and handles the organization and operation of the Geisai art fair. Having earned success and recognition internationally, Murakami has devoted himself to nurturing and supporting the careers of a younger generation of Japanese artists. Likening the operation to that of a record label, he offers both logistic support and practical career advice. Through this endeavor, he also seeks to build an original and sustainable art market in Japan. A second Gallery called Hidari Zingaro was opened in 2010 and has now expanded to include four separate locations within the Nakano Broadway shopping mall in Nakano, Tokyo. The company and its galleries represent a number of prominent international artists including Takashi Murakami, KAWS, Mark Grotjahn, Anselm Reyle, Matthew Monahan, Seonna Hong, Aya Takano, Chiho Aoshima, ob, Mr., Fantasista Utamaro, Virgil Abloh, Michael Rikio Ming Hee Ho, Kazumi Nakamura, Otani Workshop, Yūji Ueda, Chinatsu Ban, Rei Sato, and Friedrich Kunath. The company began in Saitama, Japan in Asaka City, and now has offices in Tokyo, Japan in the Moto Azabu neighborhood and New York as well as affiliates in Berlin and Taiwan.

From 2002 until 2014, Murakami organized a unique direct participatory art fair called Geisai. It was held once per year in Japan and once per year in a different city, such as Taipei, or Miami. Rather than give space to pre screened galleries, the fair allowed artists to create their own booths and interact directly with potential buyers.

Murakami was involved in NFTs from April 2021 but his first project, "Murakami. Flowers", was suspended by the artist shortly after its release due to his concern about his little knowledge of the topic. The idea of creating NFTs stemmed from his financial problems during the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. In November 2021 he collaborated with Nike owned company RTFKT Studios on CloneX avatar projects. In January 2022 he announced resuming work on "Murakami. Flowers".