Takashi Murakami

Galerie 20.21, Essen

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; New York, Brooklyn Art Museum; Frankfurt, Museum für Moderne Kunst; Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum, © Murakami, 2008-09, n.p. illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals a minute media accretion approximately 30cm. from the lower right edge on the first panel from the left. There is a minute and faint scratch on the extreme outer edge of the second panel from the left towards the top left corner. There is a minute speck of media accretion towards the bottom of the right edge, approximately 20cm. from the lower edge, on the third panel from the left. There is very minor wear to the top left corner tip and a small rub mark on the right corner of the fourth panel from the left, and three fly spots to the right side of the big DOB ball. There is very minor wear to the top left corner tip of the fifth canvas from the left. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals a few, isolated areas of fluorescence which appear to be part of the artist’s working process.
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Epitomizing Takashi Murakami’s theories of the “Superflat” on a truly monumental scale, Magic Ball I (Positive) is a striking manifestation of the artist’s revolutionary artistic vision, through which he addresses the search for cultural identity in Post-War Japan whilst celebrating the country’s millenary artistic tradition. Executed in 1999, this work anticipates Murakami’s philosophical manifesto, which he published only one year later in his book Superflat. An unquestionably significant work within Murakami’s oeuvre, Magic Ball I was included in the seminal retrospective organised by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007, where it was shown as a representation of the artist’s early work.

Meticulously hand-painted across seven panels, Magic Ball I is strongly reminiscent of the intricate folding screens that are so synonymous with Japanese art. Introduced in the Nara period, these screens were at first large scale panels but their structure and design evolved over centuries, becoming almost-architectural, enveloping arrangements with elaborate decorations adorning the residencies of wealthy families in the Edo period. Murakami’s deep knowledge of and fascination with these designs inspired him in the formulation of his theories which he began with the formal analysis of several artworks. In his writings, the artist describes how when looking at Old Plum Tree (1647) by Kanō Sansetsu, the viewer's gaze wanders across the panels, darting between the various pictorial elements painted on the golden screens. Based on this analysis, the artist explains how “the way a picture controls the speed of its observer’s gaze, the course of that gaze’s scan, and the subsequent flow” was what inspired his theories on the “Superflat” (Takashi Murakami, Superflat, Tokyo 2000, p. 9).

Murakami’s artistic thoughts are saturated in Magic Ball I: vividly coloured variations of the artist’s signature motif, Mr DOB, are scattered on a camouflage background. The viewer is encouraged to explore the surface, turning from smiling to angry, aggressive expressions.  Since Mr DOB’s inception in the early 1990s, Murakami has created multiple versions of the character that he considers his alter ego. The name DOB is an acronym for “dobojite, dobojite, oshamanbe”, a Japanese play on words that the artist and his assistants came up with during their late night conversations. Mr DOB’s simple early designs - inspired by popular culture icons such as Mickey Mouse and Sonic the Hedgehog - grew and almost acquired a life of their own over time, appearing in two and three dimensional form and in a wide range of attitudes, from innocent and friendly to angry and monster-like. In Magic Ball I, Murakami seems to have wanted to review all of Mr DOB’s likenesses, making him grimace and distorted, bestowing Magic Ball I with a rhythmic cadence that reminds us of the manga films that the artist so admires.

Despite having pursued studies in traditional Japanese painting in Tokyo, Murakami was always drawn to popular culture, particularly the worlds of anime, manga and 'otaku' - the Japanese ‘geeky’ subculture - which he quotes repeatedly in his designs. In a way similar to the Pop artists of the 1960s, the artist elevates consumer culture to the status of high art. Murakami explained in an interview that, “My vision of pop culture was originally as follows: this culture could only develop because it had a certain financial wealth based on the extraordinary expansion of the capitalist economy. But this was not the case for otaku culture: even someone fairly poor can enjoy it… I coined the term poku in an attempt to blend oil and water, but it didn’t work. It was after that that I opted for the term superflat, which evokes more of a compression than a fusion of these two elements” (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Paris, Fondation Cartier Pour l’Art Contemporain; London, Serpentine Galery, Takashi Murakami: Kaikai Kiki, 2002-03, p. 79). In Magic Ball I the artist skilfully blends Japanese traditional art theories with his contemporary investigations. Whilst the vibrant colours and bouncing DOB faces transport the viewer to a world of fantasy and animation, his application of paint reveals a continued fascination and passion for of the precise and refined techniques of traditional Japanese art. In its grand and over-powering scale, Magic Ball I (Positive) is a concentrated reflection on Japanese culture, an acknowledgement of its heritage and its evolution.