PRESENTATION: Takashi Murakami-Mononoke Kyoto

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. He has stated that the artist is someone who understands the borders between worlds and who makes an effort to know them.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art Archive

A large-scale solo exhibition of works by Takashi Murakami is held at Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. For Murakami, who has developed his career primarily overseas, this is his first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan in about eight years and his first outside of Tokyo. The exhibition “Superflat” curated and organized by Takashi Murakami toured Japan and the U.S. from 2000 to 2001, and together with the Superflat Manifesto that accompanied it, had a significant impact on the contemporary art scene. The concept not only linked traditional Japanese pictorial expressions with popular contemporary culture represented by anime, manga, and video games, but also considered the sensibility and social aspects of the Japanese people in the postwar period, as well as the capitalist economy, politics, and religion on a flattened plane. By using diverse methods to incorporate this concept into his overall creative process, Murakami has come to create a wide range of works that question the value and essential meaning of art. His career can be seen as an ongoing effort to challenge the international art scene, in which the Western values have become the accepted norm, providing new stimulus from a uniquely Japanese perspective. The exhibition takes place In Kyoto, the city that was a center of activity for Edo period painters in which Murakami has deeply been interested since the beginning of his career, a place where diverse forms of art and performing arts are still very much alive and intermingle. P lease look forward to encountering a new world of Murakami in “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto” an exhibition comprising around 170 predominantly new works including newly painted masterpieces, representative series, and works that will be exhibited for the first time in Japan. Murakami, who majored in “nihonga” (Japanese-style painting) at university, has been greatly influenced by the painters of the Edo period and has incorporated them into his own work. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the origin of “Superflat,” evident not only in his pictorial expression but also in his production methods and the Kaikai Kiki studio system. This exhibition features a large number of new works shown for the first time in Japan, in which Murakami uniquely interprets, references, and reconstructs exemplary works by painters who were active in Kyoto during the Edo period. Highlights of the exhibition are: A 13-meter-long Murakami version of masterpiece “Rakuchu Rakugai Zu” welcomes visitors”, “Rakuchu Rakugai Zu Byobu” or “Scenes In and Around Kyoto” (Funaki Version) (Edo period, 17th century) by Iwasa Matabei depicts various scenes of Kyoto, including shrines and temples, festivals and entertainment districts, and people enjoying Kabuki and Joruri (traditional Japanese puppet plays). A thirteen-meter-long contemporary “Rakuchu Rakugai Zu”, painted by Murakami while referencing the original, will welcome visitors to the exhibition. In addition to the above-mentioned “Rakuchu Rakugai Zu”, this exhibition features the eighteen-meter-long “Dragon in Clouds – Red Mutation” as Murakami says”The version I painted myself in annoyance after Professor Nobuo Tsuji told me, “Why don’t you paint something yourself for once?”. shown for the first time in Japan in which Murakami took on Soga Shohaku’s “Dragon and Clouds” (18th century), a work that had a deep impact on him. Surrounded by mountains, rivers, and ponds and protected by the Four Deities (Blue Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, and Black Tortoise) that symbolize the four cardinal directions, Heian-kyo—a former name given to Kyoto, was considered an ideal place. In this exhibition, a new work by Murakami with these divine beasts as its motif will be shown on four walls surrounding Murakami’s version of Heian-kyo. The “Rokkaku Rasendo” bell tower rises in the center of the space to ward off the disturbing presence of wandering “evil spirits. Murakami’s signature character Mr. DOB first appeared in 1994. With manga and video game characters as its motif, Mr. DOB is an ever-changing figure that has plugged into various contexts. Morphing into the monster Tan Tan Bo, then into an extreme form of Murakami self-portrait, Gero Tan, and then back again into Mr. DOB—while tracing the comings and goings.

Info: Curators: Takahashi Shinya & Miki Akiko, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Higashiyama Cube, 124 Okazaki Enshojicho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, Japan, Duration: 3/2-1/9/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://kyotocity-kyocera.museum/