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Takashi Murakami | | |
PRESS RELEASE
Opening: June 17th, 2007
Exibition: Takashi Murakami. Superflat 15th June 2007 - 15th August 2007
GACMA brings Takashi Murakami's Superflat to Málaga Works by Takashi Murakami, one of the most internationally renowned and provocative contemporary artists at work today, will be unveiled at GACMA on 15 June. The exhibition, consisting of numerous lithographs on paper featuring Murakami's extraordinary range of colourful characters, is the first exhibition of the work of Japan's most famous artist in the in Spain.
The name Murakami gives his exuberant style of work is Superflat , which seamlessly fuses traditional Japanese painting techniques with contemporary graphic styles found in manga comics and anime films. It also assimilates Western influences from the great Pop artist Andy Warhol to the celebrated film director Steven Spielberg. Superflat refers to the fact that the pictorial space in his works is, literally, flat, and can be read equally from various viewpoints, and also due to the conscious lack of any hierarchy in the visual references he makes. The result is an art which is extraordinarily inventive, and highly colourful, and which acts and both a celebration and a critique of popular and underground culture in Japan.
Murakami's work is populated by characters, which recur throughout his work in endlessly inventive ways. Among them is Mr DOB, a Mickey Mouse-like character, who features in several of the works at GACMA; Oval, reminiscent of a manga character, Hyakume, and a Buddha; the smiling flowers that are repeated in a bewildering range of bright colours to form rich and complex patterns; and Kaikai Kiki.
Murakami makes his work through his Kaikai Kiki corporation, an enormous organization which now employs more than 100 people to help create, distribute and promote the paintings, sculptures, prints, merchandise and animated films made by Murakami and other artists that he has brought under his wing. Like his hero Warhol, Murakami creates the initial sketches for the works and oversees their production, but much of the detailed labour is performed by Murakami's employees. Among his highest profile work has been the creation of designs for products by Louis Vuitton and Issey Miyake.
Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962. He has a PhD is traditional Japanese painting, but from the mid-1990s onwards, he has played a leading role in Japanese contemporary art. He has had solo exhibitions in some of the world's most prestigious art galleries, including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2001), The Cartier Foundation, Paris and the Serpentine Gallery, London (2002), and has a major restrospective opening at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary art later this year. He has participated in recent group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and made public works for Grand Central Station among other locations. Along with numerous other activities associated with the Kaikai Kiki company project, he has curated a number of critically acclaimed exhibitions, and founded the contemporary art fair, GEISAI.
For further information please contact: prensa@gacma.com
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