TAKASHI MURAKAMI exhibit at the MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART in chicago today... "THE OCTOPUS EATS ITS OWN LEG" was the title of the show.

There was a Murakami show I wanted to see, even though i dont really care for murakami's work... too cartoony... but i like how accessible his art is. Art-work is about finding your truth. he is free to explore anime lol 

I liked his early works that were on display though. i didn't know he made work like that.

 

Colors 1, 1989
Lapis lazuli and glass mineral pigments on washi paper

"When Murakami was a young artist, an art supply company saw his promise and lent him a large sum of money. He spent the gif entirely on lapis lazuli, among the most prized and expensive materials often used by Nihonga painters. Murakami created these panels using characteristic washi paper - but recalling the vivid color fields of Western artists such as Mark Rothko and the material excess of artists such as Jeff Koons."

Nuclear Power Picture, 1988
Straw, cardboard, and silver and gold pigment on canvas

"Three figures stand in a foreboding landscape with nuclear cooling towers billowing smoke in the background. This ominous scene presents a counterpoint to the utopian vision of nuclear power as a new fontier. The influence of contemporary German painter Anselm Kiefer - whose retrospective Murakami saw at the museum of Modern Art in New York - is particularly visible in this work's dark subject matter, dense composition, and use of natural materials. Kiefer is known for large scale abstract canvases that depict post-facist Germany."

"Japan winessed an explosion of cartoon art through animated films known as anime and comic books called manga, which spread around the world in the 1970's and 1980s. Murakami himself wanted to become a manga artist early on, nbut felt insecure about his draftmanship and pursued painting instead. Still he sought to achieve the renown of other Japanese cultural producers by creating a recognizable character that he could call his own he created Mr. DOB, a stylized mouse that Murakami continues to evolve. Part brand symbol part self portrait, Mr. DOB paved the way for other figures throughout the artist's career."

"Murakami continued to blend Eastern and Western artistic traditons in the late 1990s developing a new theory of art that he coined "Superflat." The theory addresses te culture of post-World War II Japan and its stereotype as a producer of saccharine consumer products such as Hello Kitty. Superflat describes a world that blurs distinctions between high art and low culture, a world that is metaphorically flattened by the atamoic bomb. Murakami explored these ideas in his mutable character Mr. DOB, which he continued to mutilate duplicate , stretch, distort, and adapt."