Takashi Murakami est un artiste japonais. Il s’inscrit en 1986 à un cours de peinture traditionnelle nihon-ga, située entre tradition picturale japonaise de l’époque Edo et les références occidentales. Il fait ses études à l’ Université des Beaux Arts et de Musique de Tokyo. Sa première exposition personnelle a lieu en 1989. Depuis lors, il revendique la pratique d’un art japonais autonome, d’un « nouveau japonisme », qui ne soit pas imitation de l’art occidental. Représentant de la nouvelle culture japonaise, il est l’un des artistes les plus populaires aujourd’hui au Japon.

Sa démarche Artistique

Il crée sculptures monumentales, peintures, papiers peints, et autres objets.
Ses œuvres puisent directement dans l’imagerie manga japonaise, qui est détournée et amplifiée sur des thèmes ou émergent des questionnements à première vue absents de l’aura kitsch et «kawaii» (en japonais « mignon »} des bandes dessinées japonaises.

Il cristallise dans ses œuvres et ses projets, la nouvelle subculture de Tokyo. Au fil du temps, les personnages se mettent à grouiller sur différents supports en deux dimensions ou bien sont moulés, dans des formats divers, du minuscule au géant, en fibre de verre et peints. Ils prennent aussi la forme de ballons géants en plastique aux couleurs criardes et, gonflés à l’hélium, qui envahissent les espaces d’exposition (Mr.Dob, 1997). Il réfléchit particulièrement aux scénographies pour que « le public ait l’impression d’être entouré par une multitude de caméras, même s’il se trouve en face d’une seule et même image ». Une figure à grosse tête, Dobe (qui a pris aujourd’hui pour lui « valeur d’autoportrait »), revient de manière répétée (Dobe in the Strange Forest, 1999), de même que les personnages Kaikai et Kiki ainsi que des motifs de champignons (Super Nova), de fleurs et d’yeux (Jellyfish Eyes). À la fin des années 80, il crée la Hiropon Factory, devenue aujourd’hui la Kaikai Kiki Corporation. La société crée des logos, des T-shirts, des motifs pour des vêtements, toutes sortes de produits dérivés.

Takashi Murakami coordonne aussi des expositions montrant les œuvres de jeunes artistes de son pays. Son activité de commissaire d’exposition est pour lui tout aussi importante que son travail d’artiste. Lorsqu’il organise une exposition, il essaie à chaque fois de capter les aspects à mettre en valeur : ceux de la spécificité japonaise. Il tente de mettre en relief le point de rencontre entre culture nippone et occidentale, il veut montrer des aspects de sa culture que les Occidentaux détestent ou ne comprennent pas. Chiho Aoshima, jeune artiste japonnaise, est ainsi parrainée par Murakami, dont elle partage le style.

http://www.lesartistescontemporains.com/Artistes/chiho.html

Murakami a par ailleurs collaboré avec la marque de maroquinerie de luxe Louis Vuitton. Il conçoit pour la collection de l’année 2004, de nouveaux motifs alliant son univers à ceux de cette grande marque.

Well, after another long day of writing about the Japanese art market, I can really think of nothing other than Murakami’s business ingenuity and bijutsu clubs (notoriously closed dealers’ clubs).  So, I bring you something I threw together a while ago and feel is informative for those who know very little about the Japanese contemporary art scene.  Hope it informs.  Expect more on the Japanese market soon.

Right now is a truly exciting time for the Japanese art market – especially for up and coming artists who are looking for a big break at home or abroad. Thanks to more established artists, the whole world is finally taking note of contemporary Japanese art, thereby giving unknown artists a better platform for their work.

Most of this newfound publicity is really down to Takashi Murakami. His ingenuity and business savvy have allowed him to completely revamp the Japanese market in Japan and across the globe. Murakami has said that there no reliable contemporary art market in Japan when he first started out and he has sought to change that so that artists aren’t forced to leave Japan in order to make a name for themselves as he and many others had to do.

Luckily things have changed. Galleries have cropped up all over Tokyo, many looking for cutting edge and new artists. There has also been a recent proliferation of auction houses which host open auctions in Japan. Auctions that are open to the public are essential to the growth of an art market as they help make the market more transparent, meaning buyers will be more willing to invest in the market. More buyers means more chances for new artists to sell their works. And, as Murakami and Yoshimoto Nara’s works command millions of dollars abroad, foreign collectors are also looking for new talent in Japanese art. At the moment, Rei Sato has a solo show in the Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York – her show opened right after a solo show for the more established artist Mr. closed – and Chiho Aoshima is having articles written about her and her work in English-language magazines. Plus, the focus of the Paris Photo fair this year is Japan, with Japanese artists and galleries taking center stage.

And, this year Murakami has brought back not only GEISAI, his one-day massive art fair, but also Museum GEISAI, two great ways for unrepresented artists to show and sell their work (check out the website to find out how to apply for a booth for GEISAI #11 in September: http://www.geisai11.us/). This year also marked the inaugural year for the 101 Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair, which featured quite a few young, local dealers – always a great thing to see at art fairs. Like open auctions, art fairs encourage buyers in a market and the recent spate of art fairs in Tokyo will only grow as the market grows.

It definitely is an exciting time for Japanese artists both at home and abroad. There are so many opportunities opening up for them as the Japanese art market takes on an international aspect. Soon enough, these avant-garde artists will be established both in Japan and around the world.

Kaiba is an unusual show amongst unusual shows. Its visual style is not like any anime airing on tv, it visuals existing somewhere between Tezuka and 60s manga, and the high art of Japanese artists such as Aoshima Chiho. Kaiba is different, and people will inform you of this fact.

I’ve heard numerous polarizing comments in regards to Kaiba, among them being that it’s (one of) the best of the season, that it’s so much better than all that crap out there, that it looks terrible, and that it’s nothing special and catering only to those who want high art in their anime. Either Kaiba is the savior of anime as an artform, or it is damning evidence of an incestuous circlejerk for highfalutin posers.

Kaiba animates well, but anime has never been known for spending elaborate time and money on movement, especially not for a tv series. Its characters are cute, but in a very illustrative, non-tactile manner. Characters have sex but are not sexualized. It uses characters as icons, but then subverts this by having the physical look of characters be interchangeable.

I think the divided opinion on Kaiba comes from the varying and often times contradictory roles that anime plays or is supposed to play. It is both an elevation of animation as something to be taken seriously as well as entertainment that anyone can enjoy. It is so much more realistic than other cartoons, but look at how weird and stylized these characters are!

There’s nothing wrong with seeing or wanting to see physical, human-like beauty in anime characters (see name of blog), even if it’s on a purely visual level. At the same time, this idolization of characters may be the root cause of the divisive opinions in regards to Kaiba. In fact, in the eyes of some, anime is currently the incestuous circlejerk and to others those same wide-appeal shows are what make anime great.

Earth Day is Tuesday, and blue on blue at the Avalon in Beverly Hills has a special prix fixe menu featuring organic wines and dishes such as venison carpaccio and roasted halibut. A portion of the proceeds raised this week will go to Global Green USA. We’re all for it. You might as well eat for a good cause.

Lots of local restaurants are going green these days, but another color has caught my attention lately, too. What’s up with all the white? In the last few weeks, I have eaten at three L.A. restaurants with all-white dining rooms: Ortolan, Kumo and Murano. The three restaurants don’t have much else in common. Ortolan, a joint venture between actress Jeri Ryan and her chef/husband Christophe Eme, is all elegant French food featuring creative gelees, consumees (where, oh where is my accent aigu?) and confits.

Kumo, meaning cloud, is the latest Japanese venture from Michael Ovitz. Whatever you think of Ovitz–and believe me, I could share some tales of his dastardly deeds from my days as TV Editor at Variety, where I worked alongside Anita Busch–his restaurant is one of the most exquisitely designed I have seen in awhile. Above the sushi bar is a trippy anime video installation called “City Glow” by Chiho Aoshima, a student of Murakame. Still, the place could be doing a lot more business, and I have to wonder whether the town’s Schadenfreude toward Ovitz, not to mention all the press surrounding the Pellicano trial, is taking its toll.

I’m rooting for Murano in West Hollywood to succeed, if only because the talented young chef, Kristi Richey, went to the same high school as my Dad in rural Pennsylvania. Her food is far from provincial. All her pastas are made fresh daily, and the duck cannelloni is to die for. The burrata and prosciutto salad is luscious, too. Murano, with its mod design and Murano glass chandeliers, also features a swanky lounge area. The lights in the joint slowly dim, and the music gets more upbeat as the night progresses. But if you order the bread pudding–and we recommend you do–you’ll probably be so absorbed in its utter deliciousness that you won’t notice anything else. I know my eyes closed involuntarily every time I took a bite. Jenny