- 506
Takashi Murakami
Description
- Takashi Murakami
- Kitagawa-kun
- signed and dated 04 on the neck
- oil paint, synthetic resin, acrylic, fiberglass and steel on wood base
- Overall: 56 by 26 by 26 in. 142.2 by 66 by 66 cm.
- Executed in 2004, this work is from an edition of 3, each uniquely colored.
Provenance
Exhibited
Doha, Qatar Museums Authority, Murakami - Ego, February - June 2012, p. 236, illustrated in color (another example exhibited)
Condition
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Catalogue Note
While Murakami’s imageries present a world that seems highly amusing and accessible, his art comes from a highly calculated, strategized and serious method of approach and execution and addresses darker and more serious themes of art and capitalism in the East and West. Born in Tokyo in 1963, Murakami was raised and educated in Japan where he was classically trained, having received a Ph.D. in the traditional nihon-ga style of historic Japanese painting. Besides manga culture and Japanese art, the artist was also acutely aware of American pop culture–knowledge of which was available to him through his father whilst working at a naval base in the United States. From such amalgam of influences, Murakami’s art becomes a medium in which relationships between high art and popular culture, East and West, contemporary art and traditional Japanese art as well as art and capitalism are investigated. Like Warhol and Jeff Koons, Murakami works with a large team of well-trained assistants in an environment the artist often compares to a factory. Conscious of the evolving nature of fine art as well as tendencies of pop culture in both America and Japan, Murakami deftly crafted a system of production in which Japanese anime figures and characters are created on a vast array of mediums, all executed with a mechanical precision not unlike popular consumer products that are mass produced from machines. Despite the removal of the artist’s hand, the bright, poppy, playful characters such as Kitagawa-kun have become iconic of Murakami’s oeuvre, attracting not only the attention of public institutions as well as collectors in the world of fine art but also a larger audience of dedicated cult followers and fans throughout Japan.
Jeff Koons
Pink Panther, 1988
porcelain
41 by 20 1/2 by 19 in.
104.1 by 52.1 by 48.3 cm.
© Jeff Koons