ART CITIES:Paris-Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami has stated that the artist is someone who understands the borders between worlds and who makes an effort to know them. With his “Superflat” style, which employs refined classical Japanese painting techniques to depict a super-charged mix of Pop, animé and otaku content within a flattened representational picture-plane, he moves freely within an ever-expanding field of aesthetic issues and cultural inspirations. Parallel to utopian and dystopian themes, he recollects and revitalizes narratives of transcendence and enlightenment, often involving outsider-savants.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Perrotin Archive
The exhibition “Learning the Magic of Painting” by Takashi Murakami occupies the all the 3 spaces of Gallery Galerie Perrotin in Paris, more than 40 recent and heretofore never seen artworks have been gathered for this special occasion. Some of the works were displayed until recently at Murakami’s major solo retrospective “The 500 Arhats”. These include a monumental multi-panel painting entitled “A Picture of Lives Wriggling in the Forest at the Deep End of the Universe” (2015), conceived as an anthology of iconic themes of Murakami’s cosmology, from 727, Gerotan/Mr. Dob, Dragon, and Panda series to mythological animals, lion, elephant, tiger, goat, etc. A second group of works focus on the theme of the arhats. Originally explored by Murakami in a 100-meter long painting “The 500 Arhats”, these paintings represent the 500 wise followers of Buddha who attained enlightenment by overcoming their greed, hatred, and delusions, destroying their karmic residue from previous lives. On presentation also is a selection of paintings from Murakami’s “Ensō” series. The subject of these new paintings is one of the most famous motifs in Japanese Zen painting, the cycle that symbolizes emptiness, unity, and infinity in Zen Buddhism, and is also a form of meditation. Murakami has paid homage to Francis Bacon in 2002 through 2 paintings, “Homage to Francis Bacon (Study of Isabel Rawsthorne)” and “Homage to Francis Bacon (Study of George Dyer)”. On Presentation at Galerie Perrotin is an entirely new series of diptychs and triptychs inspired by the work of Francis Bacon, the new works again focus on tortured figures, where moving flesh reveals the scars & agonies of the soul of the human being, as in the portraits of Lucian Freud. Some of Murakami’s new paintings refer to the 17th Century Japanese artist Ogata Kōrin, whose white chrysanthemum motifs left a deep impression on the artist. The flowers stand out on gold or platinum-leaf backgrounds in the purest Japanese tradition, here, on outlined skulls.
Info: Galerie Perrotin, 76 Rue de Turenne, Paris & 10 Impasse Saint Claude, Paris, Duration: 10/9-23/12/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.perrotin.com
