Menu

Murakami & Abloh

future history

February 21–April 7, 2018
Davies Street, London

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork ©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Works Exhibited

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Kyoto Ensō, 2018 Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 55 ½ × 47 ¼ × 2 inches (141 × 120 × 5 cm)©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Kyoto Ensō, 2018

Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 55 ½ × 47 ¼ × 2 inches (141 × 120 × 5 cm)
©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Our Spot 1, 2018 Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 39 ⅜ × 39 ⅜ × 2 inches (100 × 100 × 5 cm)©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Our Spot 1, 2018

Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 39 ⅜ × 39 ⅜ × 2 inches (100 × 100 × 5 cm)
©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Glance past the future, 2018 Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 55 ½ × 47 ¼ inches (141 × 120 cm)© Virgil Abloh and © Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, Glance past the future, 2018

Acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 55 ½ × 47 ¼ inches (141 × 120 cm)
© Virgil Abloh and © Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, "TIMES NATURE," 2018 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 59 × 59 × 2 inches (150 × 150 × 5 cm)©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, "TIMES NATURE," 2018

Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 59 × 59 × 2 inches (150 × 150 × 5 cm)
©︎ Virgil Abloh and ©︎ Takashi Murakami

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

We are driven by an innate ambition to make artworks that are shaped by societal observations—in a variety of media—which by their existence produce a new cultural impact.
—Virgil Abloh

Coinciding with London Fashion Week 2018, Gagosian is pleased to present future history, collaborative works by Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh.

Working together in Murakami’s Tokyo studio, Murakami and Abloh have produced a unique series of works in which their styles and trademarks intersect in a stream of freewheeling, punkish mash-ups. The two artists, kindred spirits from different sectors of a broader cultural zone, reflect incisively on the signs of the times in which we live.

Read more

Future History: Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh

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.

A Takashi Murakami painting of a female avatar with blue and pink hair: CLONE X #59 Harajuku-style Angel

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.

Takashi Murakami cover and Andreas Gursky cover for Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2022 magazine

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).

Takashi Murakami with works from his ceramics collection.

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.

Takashi Murakami with his dog, Pom, Full Steam Ahead, Dark Matter in the Farthest Black Reaches of Visible Space, and Blue Flowers & Skulls (all 2012), Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., studio, Saitama, Japan, 2012

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

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.

News

Photo: Claire Dorn

Artist Spotlight

Takashi Murakami

December 9–15, 2020

Takashi Murakami seamlessly blends commercial imagery, anime, manga, and traditional Japanese styles and subjects, revealing the themes and questions that connect past and present, East and West, technology and fantasy. His paintings, sculptures, and films are populated by repeated motifs and evolving characters of his own creation. Together with dystopian themes and contemporary references, he revitalizes narratives of transcendence in continuation of the nonconformist legacy of a group of eighteenth-century Japanese artists known as the Edo eccentrics.

Photo: Claire Dorn