Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami - Acupuncture / Flowers (Checkers)

Técnica: Lithographic offset in colors

Biografía del Artista: Takashi Murakami, a multifaceted artist who works in sculpture, painting, engraving, installation… He is called “the Japanese Andy Warhol”, a very simplistic nickname, which still explains his art a little. Because Murakami is pure Pop. He draws on popular culture and uses it as a tool. In fact, his typical characters are now pop icons in themselves. Takashi Murakami was born and raised in Tokyo in the 60s. His goal was to work in animation or manga and so he studied at the Tokyo University of the Art, specialising in Nihonga, the traditional style of Japanese painting. With tradition in mind, he began to take an interest in more contemporary styles. A trip to New York made him drink from the influences of American art. Thus he began to create art with a Japanese essence but with enormous and obvious Western influences. He also began to focus on popular culture, that “low culture” as opposed to “high art”, such as otaku (anime and manga). This is how Superflat was born. Superflat is a postmodern artistic movement that provides an "external" interpretation of Japanese popular culture through the eyes of the otaku subculture. Murakami begins to show a critical look at consumerism and sexual fetishism (which prevailed after the westernization of post-war Japanese culture), capitalist neurosis, repetition, distortion... Murakami creates his own characters such as Mr. Dob, a kind of self-portrait, the repeated flowers that fill the entire surface, Buddhist images, or hypersexualized drawings. The artist also plays with scales, and usually creates large-scale works, or series of the same piece in a small format.