Takashi Murakami

Articles

Takeshi Murakami

Early Life Description

Paragraph 1 - Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, and received his BFA, MFA and PhD from the Tokyo University of the Arts (formerly the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). He founded the Hiropon factory in Tokyo in 1996, which later evolved into Kaikai Kiki, an art production and art management corporation.

Paragraph 2 - Takashi Murakami was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. From early on, he was an enthusiastic follower of animation and manga (Japanese comics), and aspired to one day work in the animation industry. He attended T.U.A Tokyo University of the Arts, originally seeking to acquire the drafting skills necessary to become an animator, but eventually majored in Nihonga, the ‘traditional’ style of Japanese painting that incorporates traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and subjects.

Paragraph 3 - Murakami was unsatisfied with the state of contemporary art in Japan, believing it to be “a deep appropriation of Western trends.” Thus, much of his early work was done in the spirit of social criticism and satire. Efforts from this period include performance art (Osaka Mixer Project, 1992), parodies of the “message” art popular in Japan in the early 90’s, (DOBOZITE DOBOZITE OSHAMANBE, 1993), and conceptual works (e.g. Randoseru Project, 1991).

Paragraph 4 - Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, and received his BFA, MFA and PhD from the Tokyo University of the Arts (formerly the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). He founded the Hiropon factory in Tokyo in 1996, which later evolved into Kaikai Kiki, an art production and art management corporation.

Paragraph 4 - Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, and received his BFA, MFA and PhD from the Tokyo University of the Arts (formerly the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). He founded the Hiropon factory in Tokyo in 1996, which later evolved into Kaikai Kiki, an art production and art management corporation.


Takeshi Murakami 1

Early Life-Career

Takashi Murakami also began developing his own pop icon, “Mr. DOB,” which would later develop into a form of self-portraiture, the first of several endlessly morphing and recurring motifs seen throughout his work. Though he garnered attention, many of his early pieces were not initially well received in Japan.


Takeshi Murakami 2

Superflat

Takashi Murakami has stated that the artist is someone who understands the borders between worlds and who makes an effort to know them. With his distinctive "Superflat" style and ethos, which employs highly refined classical Japanese painting techniques to depict a super-charged mix of Pop, animé and otaku content within a flattened representational picture-plane, he moves freely within an ever-expanding field of aesthetic issues and cultural inspirations.