Takashi Murakami - Popular Culture and Art

it's still 11:14pm on Sunday so technically i'm still in time for the popular culture week (i've been trying to log on to here for about 2 days, my net sucks.. don't get wireless)
hope everyone doesn't mind

Takashi Murakami
A Japanese pop surrealist artist born February 1st, 1963.
whilst working within this category of art he has created his own "ism" in the form of "Superflat" spawning from his work in "Poku", "Superflat" is a form of painting in which the simplistic style leaves the image in a 2D plane, tho tone and shading exist in some of the pieces they still give no 3D effect to the image for example "Army of Mushrooms"




















while the image has areas of shading, particularly on the eyes, the image is still completely 2D.
this style of painting grew from his work in "Poku" also known as pop otaku, a mixture of pop art and otaku (a form of simple anime style drawing)

Murakami's works range from flat style paintings using air brushing and spray paints to towering sculpted instillation and advertising like photography













Murakami aims with his work to challenge the Japanese culture he lives in and question western influences on it. he states that the Japanese economy is merely "a shallow appropriation of western trends". with this he states that the western influences on the Japanese culture has caused it's forced over sexualisation and has effectively crippled it's culture especially in the art world. to challenge this Murakami has spent his life creating peices that challenge the views of western art both high and low, and comments on western influence, done most notably in his untitled series which depicts numerous clouds in the shapes of skulls with his signature flowers inside. these pieces comment on the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and it's effects on the Japanese community.

Murakami has also aimed to change the western influence on his culture by creating the "Hiropon factory", much like Andy Warhol's factory, the Hiropon is used to create all of murakami's works with the aid of his artistic assistants who he hand selected from Japanese art schools. after this he created Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. an organisation that currently has over 100 employees, including many semi-famous and upstarting Japanese artists

i greatly enjoy Murakami's work as it in most cases has a very strong message to make but can still be enjoyed merely for it's aesthetic properties, and as it mimics media advertising the meaning of the works can be derived almost as easily by the average educated person as could be from a knowledgeable art critic.


below art links to Murakami's work
http://www.takashimurakami.com/
http://www.kaikaikiki.co.jp/
http://english.kaikaikiki.co.jp/artists/list/C4/