reviews MurakaMi
© MurakaMi
The MuseuM of ConTeM por ary arT, Los angeLes
29 oCTober – 11 february
‘He cares about Japan. He doesn’t care about the West.’
Marianne Boesky’s blunt identification of the object of
Takashi Murakami’s affection jumped out at me when I read
it in one of the many previews published in advance of this
much-discussed exhibition, and during my repeated visits
(it is a show that demands to be seen with ‘the public’), her
claim rang more and more true as the work became more
and more potent, if not insidiously viral. As Murakami’s
dealer in New York during the years in which his career
grew exponentially, Boesky’s assessment is impossible to
dismiss, despite the many attempts to package Murakami’s
production as user-friendly in the West, even – or especially
– those that have clearly been driven by the artist himself.
I’ve not forgotten that in his last major production – the
2005 group exhibition Little Boy that he organised at the
Japan Society in New York – Murakami put his politics front
and centre, posting the text of Article 9 of the American-
drafted Japanese constitution, with its infantilising rejection
of militarism, as a large wall painting at the core of the show,
surrounded by a strident and collective cuteness.
In its title, © Murakami seems to make it crystal-clear
that this artist has embraced the market from beginning to
end, but it may not be that simple. The show starts with
Signboard TAKASHI (1992/2007), on which Murakami has
switched the name of the biggest toy company in Japan
with his own, placing it between a logo of two flag-like stars
and the motto ‘First in quality around the world’. It may look
like a student work, but it establishes the utter consistency of
his mixed message up to the now-infamous inclusion of the
Louis Vuitton boutique in the exhibition itself. During my observations of numerous people ‘performing’ their purchases
Oval Buddha, 2007, and Super
Nova, 1999 (installation
in it just as though they were at an art fair (usually buying the viciously titled and perhaps deliberately hideous Neverfull view, the geffen Contemporary
bag), it was made clear to me that without the shop the show would be much harder to swallow as a possible inside job, if
at MoCa). photo: brian
forrest. © Takashi
not a cautionary (fairy) tale.
Murakami/kaikai kiki Co.,
Ltd. all rights reserved.
What is far more important about this exhibition, however, is the extent to which it effectively positions Murakami Courtesy MoCa, Los angeles
in the tradition of Dalí, Disney and Warhol, not so much because of how popular they all remain, but more because of how
simultaneously subversive and self-involved they could be right under our noses. Nearly every room in this exhibition is as
psychosexually intense (usually in completely autobiographical ways) as it is impeccably, even anally, presented. Is it any
wonder Murakami’s foray into anime introduced here (and looking, deliberately it seems, quite retro) revolves around his
twisted surrogates Kaikai and Kiki and their out-of-this-world discovery of the generative properties of shit? Damn straight
he doesn’t care about the West. Terry R. Myers
artreview 116
JAN_REVIEWS.indd 116 4/12/07 15:30:41
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