Gallery Insider: Murakami @ Brooklyn Museum Review

My Top 3

Takashi Murakami’s work is not the first to cross industries–industrial production, advertising, fashion, and, oh, yes, art.  The thing is, in this day and age, Murakami’s work is the epitome of what an artist’s career can become–an all-encompassing practice created by a team rather than the sweat of a single individual. While some may take issue with this method of art making, when you look at Murakami’s work you realize that it must truly take an army to achieve the sheer volume and material perfection his work exhibits at every turn. The collaborative effort to realize a single vision is very much a historical concept; how else would Henry Ford have built the first car, any cathedral have been created, or Baron Haussmann created airy avenues through the medieval rat-maze of Paris.  Murakami’s work is just another significant chapter in this lineage.

Murakami’s work pioneered the union of traditional Japanese painting (in which he holds a Ph.D.), the anime and manga of contemporary Japan, and the sheer materialist mania of our world today, while implementing a cartoonish “superflat” style.  Murakami’s serialized forms–rolling eyeballs, grinning flowers, and the Mickey Mouse-like Mr. DOB (who sometimes bears wickedly sharp fangs and multiple eyes), are all rendered with pristine surfaces in delectable candy colors. Murakami the artist has become Murakami the industry–warehouses of employees in Japan and the US, a collaboration with Louis Vuitton (which has a boutique in his Brooklyn Museum exhibition), and his recent cover art for Kanye West’s “Graduation”.  The artist has become an entity, and, in our world of consumption, his art shows us the epitome of how far consumption can be taken, remaining bewitchingly attractive all the while.

Take the time to trek to the Brooklyn Museum–they’ve put a lot into physically improving their building of late, and have presented quite a show that says a lot about art today.  If you need to decompress a bit after the barrage of gleeful imagery, head over to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.  The cherry blossoms are in bloom and it should bring an interesting contrast to the man-made madness of Murakami’s world.