Fantasy ...

"Takashi Murakami is a prolific contemporary Japanese artist who works in both fine arts media , such as painting, as well as digital and commercial media . He attempts to blur the boundaries between high and low art . He appropriates popular themes from mass media and pop culture , then turns them into thirty-foot sculptures , "Superflat" paintings , or marketable commercial goods such as figurines or phone caddies .

Murakami attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music , initially studying more traditionalist Japanese art . He pursued a doctorate in Nihonga , a mixture of Western and Eastern styles dating back to the late 19th century . However , due to the mass popularity of anime and manga , Japanese styles of animation and comic graphic stories , Murakami became disillusioned with Nihonga , and became fixated on otaku culture , which he felt was more representative of modern day Japanese life .

This resulted in Superflat , the style that Murakami is credited with starting . It developed from Poku , (Pop + otaku). Murakami has written that he aims to represent Poku culture because he expects that animation and otaku might create a new culture . This new culture being a rejuvenation of the contemporary Japanese art scene . This is what it is all about to Murakami ; he has expressed in several interviews in the last five or six years the frustration that his art has risen from . It is a frustration rooted in the lack of a reliable and sustainable art market in post-war Japan , and the general view of Japanese art in and outside the country as having a low art status . He is quoted as saying that the market is nothing but "a shallow appropriation of Western trends" . His first reaction was to make art in non-fine arts media , but decided instead to focus on the market sustainability of art and promote himself first overseas . This marks the birth of KaiKai Kiki , LLC ."



Takashi Murakami with the support of Louis Vuitton , the friendship of Marc Jacobs , Pharrell , Kanye or Nigo from BAPE has recently invaded the US soil , his exhibition landing in Los Angeles and then New York . Check the stories below to get a glimpse of his universe :

Takashi Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

Opening Night at the Brooklyn Museum

Takashi Murakami Monogramouflage for Louis Vuitton

Fighting the fakes : Louis Vuitton and Murakami make a show of it

Kaikai Kiki

Bio : Wiki