V O G U E | Diaspora: Takashi Murakami

Showing posts with label Takashi Murakami. Show all posts

Takashi Murakami's Erotic Show at Gagosian London

Takashi Murakami's latest group of paintings explores his complex ambivalence to the legacy of cosmopolitan painter Kuroda Seiki, who brought Western-style painting to Meiji-period Japan. Kuroda broadly promoted the genre of history painting, as well as the validity of the nude figure as a subject for art. Taking Kuroda's famous triptych, Wisdom, Impression, Sentiment (c.1900), Murakami consciously reclaims it in a new iteration by applying traditional nihonga techniques, as well as recasting the realistically rendered nude figures in contemporary manga style.

In Murakami's paintings such as Shunga: Gibbons and Shunga: Bow Wow, graphic depictions of exaggerated and engorged male and female genitals are set against delirious backgrounds of image and pattern. The Shunga theme continues into life-size sculptures, such as Nurse Ko2, a leggy, busty verticality figure with a sexy uniform, or 3-Meter Girl, an absurdist composition that pushes form and content to extremes. She stands with feet spread wide, her petite body against the whooping pendular breasts whose size and weight threaten to topple her.

Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo. His most recent large-scale exhibition was held at the Chateau de Versailles, France in 2010. He lives and works in Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles.

3-Meter Girl, 2011

Photography by Mike Bruce/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Photography by Muir Vidler / Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Nurse Ko2

Photography by Mike Bruce/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Big Box PK02

Photography by Mike Bruce/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Overview
All Artworks @Takashi Murakami / Kakai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights reserved
Photography by Mike Bruce / Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, London

Takashi Murakami

June 28 - August 5, 2011
This post is also featured on the Huffington Post

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Holiday Gifts: Murakami Versailles

A last minute gift, "Murakami Versailles." If you missed the exhibition of the Japanese pop art artist Takashi Murakami at the Palace of Versailles earlier this year, the once in a lifetime event was captured in the following book published by Editions Xavier Barral. The 280-page book is available at Colette -Paris, and also on line at Amazon.

Images courtesy Editions Xavier Barral

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Takashi Murakami in Versailles updated

The Palace of Versailles has invited leading Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for a two-month retrospective ( see previous post ). The exhibition, running from September 12th to December 12th, will be Murakami’s first major retrospective in France, following fellow pop artist Jeff Koons who showed at the palace in 2008 and Frenchman Xavier Veilhan in 2009. Murakami looks to display his sculptures and paintings in 15 rooms in the palace’s Hall of Mirrors and the apartments of the King and the Queen.

I am the Cheshire Cat who greets Alice in Wonderland with his devilish grin, and chatters on as she wanders around the Chateau. With my playful smile, I invite you all to the Wonderland of Versailles.
-Takashi Murakami

Images courtesy of Dezeen

Murakami's recent work via Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

Golden Bear, 2009-2010

Kanye Bears produced in collaboration with Kanye West

Pom & Me, 2009-2010

New Murakami

At Louis Vuitton Maison, London

For more info on the exhibition, go to Chateau de Versailles

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Takashi Murakami in Versailles

Takashi Murakami, the "Japanese Warhol" will exhibit his work in the Chateau de Versailles for a show that will run from September 14 to December 12. The artist will follow in the footsteps of Jeff Koons, who displayed his sculpture pieces in 2008, and Xavier Veilhan in 2009. It will be Murakami first retrospective in France.

“For a Japanese like me, the Château de Versailles is one of the greatest symbols of Western history. It is the emblem of an ambition for elegance, sophistication and art that most of us can only dream of.
Of course, we are aware that the spark that set fire to the powder of the Revolution came directly from the centre of the building.

-Takashi Murakami