On a brisk spring Sunday we experienced Murakami, Inc. Actually, the title of the exhibition was "© Murakami," which properly reflected his philosophy on the seamless convergence of art and commerce. It was one of the most appalling yet fascinating, engaging yet enraging art exhibitions I've ever lived through. The "Superflat" movement founded by Murakami is exemplified by his playfully psychedelic, yet dense and richly-colored paintings. Many of the larger works were painted by a team of artists under his direction at his studio in Queens (we know one of his former apprentices personally; she left due to the sweatshop-like conditions). Some rooms in the exhibition were even decorated from floor to ceiling with his "superflat" motifs of happy flowers and other saccharine/evil images. But Murakami, not one to limit his choices of media, employed sculpture, video and even Louis Vuitton handbags to express his ideas on mass culture and society.
In fact, in the middle of the exhibition you are forced to walk through what seems to be a functioning Louis Vuitton handbag store, complete with sales agents and cash register. It's a shockingly effective piece of performance art perpetuating Murakami's obsession with commerce. I found myself so enraged by such a commercial assault on the sanctity of art, I almost made a scene–I really wanted to castigate the 'sales people' for molesting our right to enjoy art free of commercial intrusion. But then I calmed down and realized it was really a clever provocation on Murakami's part, even if he was making mega-bucks on the side.
Murakami's ability to shock and awe greeted us at the very beginning, when we were exposed to a fiberglass statue of a "Hiropon," a buxom, half-naked woman skipping a rope of milk streaming from her massive breasts. Then we were introduced to "My Lonesome Cowboy" (1998), a fiberglass sculpture of a young man with windswept, blue hair grasping his manhood while spewing a stream of "man milk", or a semen lasso as wikipedia puts it, over his head. Shock, glee, confusion, outrage, sadness, understanding–Murakami's exhibit brings out all of these emotions and more. That's art doing what it's supposed to do. Speaking of shocking, in May 2008, My Lonesome Cowboy sold for $15.2 million. Murakami links:
On art, otaku and Japanese society: http://www.jca-online.com/murakami.html
WikiMurakami: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Murakami
More photos from the day...
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