It’s interesting to note that Japanese artist Takashi Murakami was the only visual artist included on Time magazine’s 2008 “100 Most Influential People” list. Not that I put that much stock in such lists, but it’s a glimpse of the wide ranging notice Murakami is receiving.
Muuakami’s style covers a wide range as well, with influences from traditional Japanese art, which he studied at Tokyo national University of Fine Arts and Music, combined with 20th century Modernist notions and contemporary pop culture streams from manga, anime, and “otaku” culture, in a kind of glorious art mash-up explosion of brightly colored graphic patterns and iconic imagery; as if Peter Max was channeling Utagawa school artists by way of Masamune Shirow in an exhibit put together by Andy Warhol.
Murakami seems to have the ability to slip back and forth at will through cultural layers as well, passing from gallery art to pop culture to outright commercialism, with his name appearing on designer goods along with Louis Vuittom.
There is a major show of his work currently at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, from now until May 31, 2009.
The show has previously traveled to MOCA in California, which has videos of the exhibit and interviews the the artist; and The Brooklyn Museum in NY.
Murakami doesn’t have a web site per se as an artist, but rather an art production company, Kaikai, Kiki (roughly meaning “oddly fascinating”), devoted to art related merchandise, animation and art promotion, of which his art is a part.
[Via Art Knowledge News]
