About
We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.
—Takashi Murakami
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 mutating characters of his own creation. His wide-ranging work embodies an intersection of pop culture, history, and fine art.
Murakami earned a BA, MFA, and PhD from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he studied nihonga (traditional Japanese painting). In 1996 he established the Hiropon Factory, a studio/workshop that in subsequent years grew into an art production and artist management company, now known as Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd.
Since the early 1990s Murakami has invented characters that combine aspects of popular cartoons from Japan, Europe, and the US—from his first Mr. DOB, who sometimes serves as a stand-in for the artist himself, to various anime characters and smiling flowers, bears, and lions. These figures act as icons and symbols—hosts for more complex themes of violence, technology, and fantasy.
In 2000 Murakami curated Superflat, an exhibition featuring works by artists whose techniques and mediums synthesize various aspects of Japanese visual culture, from ukiyo-e (woodblock prints of the Edo period) to anime and kawaii (a particular cuteness in cartoons, handwriting, products, and more). With this exhibition, Murakami advanced his Superflat theory of art, which highlights the “flatness” of Japanese visual culture from traditional painting to contemporary subcultures in the context of World War II and its aftermath.
Murakami’s work extends to mass-produced items such as toys, key chains, and t-shirts. In 2002 he began a multiyear collaboration with Marc Jacobs on the redesign of the Louis Vuitton monogram. Murakami then took the radical step of directly incorporating the Vuitton monograms and patterns into his paintings and sculptures. While Murakami’s imagery may appear to present unprecedented characters and forms, many contain explicit art historical references, and some are even direct contemporary updates on traditional Japanese works.
In 2009 Murakami and the esteemed art historian Nobuo Tsuji began a creative dialogue centered on a group of Japanese artists known as the Edo eccentrics. This collaboration led to an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2017, for which Murakami and Tsuji selected Japanese works from the museum’s collection and showed them alongside works by Murakami. The latter included Dragon in Clouds—Red Mutation: The version I painted myself in annoyance after Professor Nobuo Tsuji told me, “Why don’t you paint something yourself for once?” (2010), a red monochrome version of the famous eighteenth-century painting Dragon and Clouds by Soga Shōhaku.
Following the Tōhoku earthquake of 2011 and the subsequent nuclear crisis at Fukushima, Murakami began deeply exploring the impact of historical natural disasters on Japanese art and culture. In his 2014 Gagosian exhibition at West 24th Street in New York, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, he created an immersive installation of eclectic arhats; deliquescing clones of his fictional creature Mr. DOB; and karajishi, the mythic lions that guard Japanese Buddhist temples, that visitors entered through a replica of a sanmon (sacred gate).
Not only does Murakami merge different time periods, styles, and subject matter in his work, but his approach to art crosses the boundaries between gallery, studio, art fair, and media as well. Along with creating paintings and sculptures, he has hosted art fairs for emerging artists, curated exhibitions, and made films featuring his many characters and motifs. Combining fantasy, science, and history, he shows that none of these categories can be considered in isolation.
Photo: Chika Okazumi
#TakashiMurakami
Exhibitions
Takashi Murakami and RTFKT: An Arrow through History
Bridging the digital and the physical realms, the three-part presentation of paintings and sculptures that make up Takashi Murakami: An Arrow through History at Gagosian, New York, builds on the ongoing collaboration between the artist and RTFKT Studios. Here, Murakami and the RTFKT team explain the collaborative process, the necessity of cognitive revolution, the metaverse, and the future of art to the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2022
The Summer 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, with two different covers—featuring Takashi Murakami’s 108 Bonnō MURAKAMI.FLOWERS (2022) and Andreas Gursky’s V & R II (2022).
Murakami on Ceramics
Takashi Murakami writes about his commitment to the work of Japanese ceramic artists associated with the seikatsu kōgei, or lifestyle crafts, movement.
In Conversation
Takashi Murakami and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews the artist on the occasion of his 2012 exhibition Takashi Murakami: Flowers & Skulls at Gagosian, Hong Kong.
Takashi Murakami at LACMA
In a conversation recorded at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Takashi Murakami describes the process behind three major large-scale paintings, including Qinghua (2019), inspired by the motifs painted on a Chinese Yuan Dynasty porcelain vase.
“AMERICA TOO”
Join us for an exclusive look at the installation and opening reception of Murakami & Abloh: “AMERICA TOO”.
In Conversation
Future History: Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh
Following their artistic collaboration in London, Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, the recently appointed Louis Vuitton menswear designer, spoke with Derek Blasberg about how they met, their admiration for each other, and the power of collaboration to educate and impassion new audiences.
Nobuo Tsuji vs. Takashi Murakami
From 2009 to 2011 the eminent art historian Nobuo Tsuji and Takashi Murakami engaged in a reimagined e-awase (painting contest). In this twenty-one-round contest, newly published in Battle Royale! Japanese Art History, Tsuji selects historical works and Murakami responds creatively. Round 6 centers on the Edo Eccentric painter Soga Shōhaku and his monumental Dragon and Clouds (1763).
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2018
The Spring 2018 Gagosian Quarterly with a cover by Ed Ruscha is now available for order.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
In Conversation
Brooklyn Talks
Takashi Murakami and Joan Cummins
Monday, April 29, 2024, 7–9pm
Brooklyn Museum, New York
www.brooklynmuseum.org
In conjunction with the exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) at the Brooklyn Museum, Murakami and curator Joan Cummins will discuss the artist’s new series of fantastical paintings that respond to Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (1856–58), now on view at the museum for the first time in twenty-four years. Cummins and Murakami will also reflect on Hiroshige’s contributions to global art history and his role as a witness to and chronicler of environmental and social change.
Takashi Murakami. Artwork © 2024 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Shin Suzuki
Art Fair
Art Basel Hong Kong 2024
March 27–30, 2024
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
www.artbasel.com
Gagosian is participating in Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 with a selection of works by international contemporary artists. The works on view, which embrace a dizzying variety of subjects and approaches, see the participating artists identify fresh ways to disrupt established histories of abstraction and figuration, and instill sculptural and painterly representations of the natural world with complex cultural significance.
Sarah Sze, Turning and Turning, 2024 © Sarah Sze. Photo: Maris Hutchinson
Art Fair
ART SG 2024
January 19–21, 2024, booth BC06
Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore
artsg.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in the second edition of ART SG, with a selection of works by international contemporary artists including Harold Ancart, Georg Baselitz, Ashley Bickerton, Amoako Boafo, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Nan Goldin, Lauren Halsey, Hao Liang, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Tetsuya Ishida, Alex Israel, Donald Judd, Y.Z. Kami, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rick Lowe, Takashi Murakami, Takashi Murakami & Virgil Abloh, Nam June Paik, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Stanley Whitney, Jonas Wood, and Zeng Fanzhi. The works on view, which embrace a wide variety of subjects and approaches, find artists infusing traditional genres such as history painting, portraiture, and landscape with new and surprising ideas that traverse cultural and temporal boundaries.
Gagosian’s booth at ART SG 2024. Artwork, left to right: © ADAGP, Paris, 2024, © Jonas Wood, © Rick Lowe Studio. Photo: Ringo Cheung
Museum Exhibitions
On View
Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami)
Through August 4, 2024
Brooklyn Museum, New York
www.brooklynmuseum.org
For the first time in twenty-four years, Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo returns to public display. Originally published in 1856–58, the series captures the evolving socioeconomic and environmental landscape of the city that would become Tokyo. The exhibition includes the full set of prints and other complementary objects drawn from the museum’s collection, as well as new paintings by Takashi Murakami, created in direct response to Hiroshige’s masterpiece.
Takashi Murakami, Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo: Japonisme Reconsidered—Suidō Bridge and Surugadai, 2024 © 2024 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved
On View
Takashi Murakami
Mononoke Kyoto
Through September 1, 2024
Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, Japan
takashimurakami-kyoto.exhibit.jp
This exhibition staged to celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (formerly the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art) brings together around 170 works by Takashi Murakami. Kyoto was the center of Edo period painting—a history that has fascinated Murakami since the beginning of his career.
Installation view, Takashi Murakami: Mononoke Kyoto, Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, Japan, February 3–September 1, 2024. Artwork © 2024 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Josh White
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Takashi Murakami
Unfamiliar People—Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego
September 15, 2023–February 12, 2024
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
exhibitions.asianart.org
In this exhibition of work by Takashi Murakami the artist uses monsters as a central motif to address the complicated nature of the world around us. The show includes large-scale paintings and sculptures and several newly created works that respond to the impact of the global pandemic and a shift toward virtual interaction. Paintings of distorted figures reflect the swelling egos of individuals relentlessly promoting themselves on social media, while works recording the artist’s creation of NFTs, including avatars, look with optimism toward a digitally liberated future.
Installation view, Takashi Murakami: Unfamiliar People—Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, September 15, 2023–February 12, 2024. Artwork © 2023 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Josh White
Closed
Takashi Murakami
MurakamiZombie
January 26–April 16, 2023
Busan Museum of Art, South Korea
art.busan.go.kr
This large-scale retrospective features paintings, sculptures, installations, and video art by Takashi Murakami, including some of the artist’s earliest pieces which have never before been shown publicly. This is the fourth exhibition in the series Lee Ufan and His Friends, in which international artists respond to Ufan’s practice. The works on view deploys a “zombie aesthetic” emblematic of the collective anxiety of the contemporary world and increasingly prevalent throughout pop culture.
Installation view, Takashi Murakami: MurakamiZombie, Busan Museum of Art, South Korea, January 26–April 16, 2023. Artwork © 2023 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Josh White