In 2008, one of his doll works was priced at 500 million yen, setting a record for similar goods.
Murakami Takashi is the only visual artist among the 100 most influential figures selected by Time magazine in 2008. Most of his works are inspired by traditional Japanese cartoons, with precious materials, bright colors and frequent sexual and violent displays.
Not only did Miss Ko2 (made of fiberglass and about 2 meters high), a blonde cartoon beauty who once sold $567,000 at Christie's auction in new york; LV, who is sought after by women all over the world, also frequently cooperates with him to decorate LV handbags with his design patterns, each of which costs as much as $5,000. The image of Mr. DOB is also printed on T-shirts and balloons, which are sold in large quantities and become a popular trend among young people.
Young people are no longer satisfied with clothes with cartoon images of Donald Duck or HelloKitty. They appreciate the neurotic Murakami Takashi colors and patterns reflected in their clothes.
201September14-1February 12, the retrospective exhibition of Murakami Takashi's personal works was held in Versailles.
In 2003, Murakami Takashi published his "Childlike Manifesto", and the Japanese trend culture full of childlike innocence entered the center of western fashion. As early as the spring and summer of 2000, Murakami Takashi's iconic "eyes" had blinked on Issey Miyake's men's wear. In 2003, his "Panda" and "Sakura" even appeared on Louis Vuitton's purse. This series of CherryBlossom is nicknamed "Cherry Bag" by fans, which makes women all over the world, especially in Asia, flock to it with pink cherry petals and happy smiles. Louis Vuitton's classic MonogranMulti-color has been spinning in three colors for a hundred years, but Murakami Takashi used dozens of colors in one breath, instantly turning the original mature classic and even a little old-fashioned image of Louis Vuitton into colorful and light. The limited edition EyeLoveMonogram series follows Murakami Takashi's most symbolic "eye" and is still widely sought after for four years.
At the same time that the Declaration of Childlike Heart was published, China's book The Passing of Childhood was also very popular. This is actually a very serious academic book, and the author neil Pozmann once wrote the influential Entertainment to Death. In "Childhood Gone for Never", he studied the development history of media technology, and found that the dividing line between adults and children, which was originally established through printing and reading skills, became increasingly blurred under the fierce attack of television, which turned the secrecy and violence of adults into entertainment. For example, children's favorite cartoons are often not pastoral songs like tadpoles looking for their mothers, but violent legends like Transformers and saints. Japanese cartoons like Crayon Shinchan are the most interesting.
At the same time, neil Pozmann also found that when children become adults, adults become more and more childlike, and the intelligence level of TV news and advertisements is only equivalent to a child of 10. These academic predictions seem more likely to come true.
He quickly became popular in Japan and became the leader of "New Pupu", and his works frequently appeared in mainstream western media such as The New York Times. His cartoon characters Kaikai and Qiqi are not only very popular in Japan, but also aroused great repercussions when they exhibited Superflat at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Henry Art Museum in Seattle. The best-selling of his works won him a great reputation, and he was called "one of the hottest and most controversial artists in the world".
Energetic, he is also the founder and manager of Japanese young artist group "HIROPON Factory". He likes to be surrounded by a large group of assistants and likes to create in the form of a factory rather than a personal studio. His factory is full of young artists and well-trained technicians. In addition, he also set up his own company, KAIKAIKIKI, and engaged in creation, exhibition planning and art trading. But his studio looks unremarkable, with an ordinary and simple appearance, like the housing of ordinary Japanese farmers.
He not only created a strange and interesting image in the eyes of westerners, but also created his own style and theory called "Superflat", and used the same exhibition and album called Superflat to show all aspects of his unique style, including cartoon painting, semi-simplified sculpture, huge and inflatable balloons, watch T-shirts and other product designs, installation art and animation. In his products or works, there is often a lovely but hideous "Mr DOB" with two big ears. This fictional character is like his signature.
Mr. DOB, also known as Mr. Blink, Murakami Takashi once explained the origin of DOB. "I often think about the context of art, and these thoughts give me this free and changeable face. Why do Cezanne, Duchamp, Picasso, Warhol and Okamoto Taro, the immortal masters of modern art, still have such strong vitality after decades? We are familiar with the images of Mickey Mouse, Robot Cat and Hello Kitty. What is their' survival secret' or' universality' in the market? Actually, I made the DOB plan to explore these problems. Now, this plan is more like my self-portrait. "
DOB is actually a word created by Murakami Takashi by combining the mantra of a Japanese cartoon character with Japanese dialect. Its original meaning can be translated as "why". It combines the image characteristics of Mickey Mouse and Japanese comics. The letters D and B are written on two big ears, and the head is just an O. It has all kinds of smiles, sometimes it looks cute and sometimes it looks ferocious. Under its deliberately naive appearance, it maintains the big-eyed style of typical Japanese anime characters. It first appeared in the form of painting in 1993. In some later works, Murakami Takashi even gave Dobby teeth like a shark. Dobby's image was printed on T-shirts and balloons and sold in large quantities, becoming Murakami Takashi's other self. "Mr Dobb always wants to know," he said.
1997 and 1998, respectively, Murakami Takashi created two famous sculptures of cartoon characters, which made him the most controversial and expensive contemporary Japanese artist. He designed them into freely detachable three-dimensional model toys and put them on the production line of his "Hiropon Factory".
Among them, Hiropon is a cartoon girl made of fiberglass and iron. She has a pair of big eyes, a face as sweet as a foreign doll, and fluffy hair, which are common in comic book heroines. She was almost naked, uncovered, showing rough breasts, squeezing out a lot of milk with bare nipples in her hands, and surrounded her body like white clouds, but her face was still childish and innocent.
"My inspiration comes from a game in which there is a girl with big breasts. In this deformed girl, I saw the profound history of Japanese subculture, Japanese sexual inferiority and gradually abnormal sexual culture. I realized how much impact it would have if I made her into a work. " The doll sculpture was snapped up after it appeared in an exhibition in America.
Another work, My Lonely Cowboy, is a naked cartoon boy. The prototype of the character comes from the Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball and the Japanese video game masterpiece Final Fantasy VII. He has messy hair, like an ear of rice, and a cartoon-shaped face. He is holding a penis with a big erection in his hand, spraying semen everywhere, and his expression is confident and happy.
Murakami Takashi once mentioned his observation of Japanese "cocoons": they were addicted to comics, video games and cartoon animation, grew up in them, and even became part of the creation of this scene. They represent a certain state of life and life values in Japan's current society. "
In the Hyperplane Manifesto in the picture book, he made it clear from the beginning that society, customs, art and culture are all two-dimensional ... Ah ... Today, Japanese video games and cartoon animation can best show this trait, which has great power in world culture. "
New Alice in Wonderland
Marc jacobs, a world-famous fashion designer, likes reading all kinds of books, newspapers and magazines. When he first knew the name Murakami Takashi, he had noticed his new overall painting style. On the wall of his house, there is a huge oil painting of Murakami Takashi. He said that Murakami Takashi's paintings showed an optimistic atmosphere. Once a day, people will become cheerful.
One day, he asked Murakami Takashi to meet him in Paris and told him that he wanted to change the history of LV and make it develop a brand-new style, especially the letter combination on the surface of LV handbags. Because the main sales focus of LV is handbags, how to create a different new image for LV handbags is very important to Marc.
After many thoughts and intensive discussions by e-mail, Murakami Takashi decided to add a flower pattern to the original letter pattern on the surface of the L.V. bag, that is, the stamen part is an innocent smiling face like a child. He named this cherry blossom-shaped pattern "Playboy". When he conveyed the whole concept to Marc, Marc was very responsive and wrote in the email: "That's it!" " ".Another handbag series, with three different cartoon characters printed on the original cover of LV, is very cute. In fact, the whole creative and creative time only took more than two weeks.
In order to cooperate with this season's products, I also specially presented my own animation debut for LV. This five-minute animation transplanted the story of Alice in Wonderland to modern Tokyo. The painter is exquisite and the picture is poetic. After being made into an animated film by Dongying Cartoon Company, it has been shown in the LV store in Japan since March this year.
The story happened on a busy afternoon in Tokyo. The protagonist is Aya, a little girl full of aura, waiting for a friend to go to the appointment at the door of LV shop. I was impatient, so I took out my mobile phone and accidentally dropped it on the ground. At this time, a giant panda covered with monogram patterns appeared in front of her eyes, picked up her mobile phone and put it in her mouth, and finally swallowed Aya, so Aya said goodbye to the real world for the time being. After she entered the colorful world of monogram, she got rid of the bondage of gravity and flew. And three characters pandas designed for Lu; Aya's little guardian angel, elf hat with rainbow hat; Onion is the companion of her dream trip.
Murakami Takashi is one of the most influential Japanese artists born after 1960s. In addition to creation, he also plans exhibitions and trades artworks. Murakami Takashi's "Declaration of Childlike Heart" has a strong Japanese cartoon style, and flat figures, plants and flowers are particularly popular among young people in the context of Japan-centered trend culture.
In 2002, "Kaikai KiKi" solo exhibition and "Superflat" 2 exhibition were held for Murakami Takashi.
In 2003, Murakami Takashi published a new manifesto "The Manifesto of Childlike Mind", which made him a genius in the eyes of the world and made Japanese pop culture enter the western fashion.
Whether in the spring and summer of 2000, his "eyes" appeared on Issey Miyake's men's wear, or in the spring and summer of 2003, his pandas and cherry blossoms boarded the most classic handbags of the French mainstream old Louis Vuitton. Everyone realizes to some extent that there is always a naive temptation in Murakami Takashi's world.
In 2005, the Museum of Modern Art of Cartier Group held the first transnational art festival for Murakami Takashi. This platform, just like the Avenue of Stars in the art world, was planned by Murakami Takashi, which allowed newcomers to display their talents and had the opportunity to let young French and Japanese artists compete on the same stage.
As the founder of Kiki Studio for Giant Panda, although Murakami Takashi himself has stepped onto the altar, he has been devoted to cultivating young artists in his hometown. Gaisai Art Festival was held in 2002, aiming at discovering new artists and opening the door for a new generation of artists.
In 2000, Kyle Jacobs, the design director of LV, invited Murakami Takashi to cooperate and creatively used flowers, mushrooms, cherries or colorful patterns in the classic Monogram series. The introduction of cherry bags and other styles has triggered a wave of buying by consumers and also led the trend of fashion cross-border cooperation with artists.
LV's leather bag products have replaced the traditional four-color printing with dozens of bright colors, making the traditional impression of calm and elegant young and colorful. The limited edition "Eye Love Monogram" series features classic and lovely eyes. For this series, Murakami Takashi also specially designed a new window and animation "SuperFlat Monogram" for LV. In terms of windows and animation content, people fall into a fairy tale world full of imagination, which is very cute.
Murakami Takashi LV Murakami Takashi found a bridge between elite culture and popular culture, animation and fashion products, and west and east. He always believes that first-class works are works that are understood by many people. I believe that this standard is no exception when transplanted to the fashion industry, which will gain a platform for communication between different cultures and even make the West interested in the East in turn.