PRESENTATION: Takashi Murakami-Understanding the New Cognitive Domain

Drawing from traditional Japanese painting, sci-fi, anime, and the global art market, Takashi Murakami creates paintings, sculptures, and films populated by repeated motifs and a stream of commercial products populated by mutating characters of his own creation. His wide-ranging work embodies an intersection of pop culture, history, and fine art.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Archive

Takashi Murakami’s solo exhibition “Understanding the New Cognitive Domain” focuses on his monumental paintings. The exhibition features five such works plus others in smaller formats and several sculptures. This is the artist’s first exhibition with Gagosian gallery in France. The exhibition marks the debut of “2020 The Name Succession of Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII, Hakuen, Kabuki Jūhachiban” (2023), a monumental new 5-by-23-meter painting by Murakami based on the iwai-maku, or stage curtain, that he produced for the Kabuki-za theater in Ginza, Tokyo, in celebration of Japanese Kabuki actor and producer Ichikawa Ebizō XI’s assumption of the name Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII, Hakuen. (Kabuki stage names, which specify an actor’s style and lineage, are passed down through generations; the Ichikawa family has a roughly 350-year history.) The November 2022 unveiling of Murakami’s design, which was commissioned by film director Takashi Miike, coincided with the first performance of Ichikawa Shinnosuke VIII in the November Kichirei Kaomise Grand Kabuki Theaterprogram. Also on view is another extended-format painting, “Dragon in Clouds – Indigo Blue” (2010), which Murakami produced in response to eccentric Japanese artist Soga Shōhaku’s “Dragon and Clouds” (1763). Shōhaku’s work is a multi-panel Unryūzu (cloud-and-dragon) painting in which the titular creature appears as a Buddhist symbol of optimism and good fortune. Murakami’s painting, like Shōhaku’s, uses a restricted palette and is spread over several conjoined sections. Graphic swirls allude to Shōhaku’s expressive use of ink and suggest the dragon’s flight, combining with its flared nostrils and serpentine whiskers to evoke turbulent motion. “Dragon in Clouds – Indigo Blue” also resonates with contemporary Japanese visual culture, particularly the video game “Blue Dragon”, while its vast scale revives the visceral and psychological impact of Shōhaku’s masterpiece. In another epic, friezelike painting, Murakami employs an aesthetic that evokes nostalgia for the pixelated look of 1980s computer graphics. The work was inspired by Mike Kelley’s “Pay for Your Pleasure” (1988), a set of banners portraying great artists and writers, accompanied by quotes about the transgressive nature of creative genius, shown with a self-portrait by a convicted criminal. Murakami’s work replaces Kelley’s subjects with important contributors to the field of economics over the past millennium, including the Sumerians, Sima Qian, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Satoshi Nakamoto, Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, and the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, ranging them along a rainbow-hued timeline. By aligning these key drivers of global economic change with characters in a video game, Murakami draws attention to the competitive and strategic aspects of economic theory, and the degree to which these figures’ ideas have influenced contemporary culture. “Understanding the New Cognitive Domain” also includes several “lucky cat” paintings that reference the artist’s recent NFT projects, and other works featuring Murakami’s iconic smiling flower motif, including a two-meter rainbow neon sign, in which the artist again employs a retro-digital variant on his influential Superflat aesthetic. His ever-proliferating cartoonlike blossoms function as immediately recognizable and infinitely flexible icons that may be at once ornamental and symbolic, directing the viewer toward intertwined themes of identity, representation, and technology. Finally, two mirror-plated figures representing futuristic anime-style avatars reinvest the “Clone X NFTs” (2021) that Murakami developed in collaboration with RTFKT Studios with physical presence, reflecting his fascination with the metaverse and his sensitivity to the hybrid nature of agency in today’s world. Separated from works such as “Dragon in Clouds – Indigo Blue” by a gulf of history, such projects act as a reminder that, while their maker trained in the techniques and aesthetics of traditional Japanese painting, he is also immersed in current pop-cultural styles, modes, personalities, and technologies. Murakami has designed a special NFT gift that is available for free exclusively to visitors on the opening day of the exhibition from 3 to 6pm. The NFTs will be minted on demand at the Le Bourget gallery and are limited to one per person. There will be a special giveawa

Photo: Takashi Murakami, 2020 The Name Succession of Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII, Hakuen, Kabuki Jūhachiban, 2023, Acrylic and glitter on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 196 7/8 x 917 11/16 inches (500 x 2331 cm), © 2023 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved, Photo: Thomas Lannes, Courtesy Gagosian

Info: Gagosian Gallery, 26 avenue de l’Europe, Le Bourget, France, Duration: 10/6-22/12/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://gagosian.com/