Monday entry (for 10/26/09): Artist of interest: Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 1, 1963. He studied traditional Japanese art at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. Afterwards he received his doctorate in Nihonga, the study of traditional techniques and methods of Japanese painting. Murakami is well known for straddling the borders between fine art, low brow and commercial art, though Murakami doesn't think of it as straddling borders but rather as "changing the line." His work combines themes from Western pop culture with an Eastern edge. Murakami is well known for his highly erotic sculptures titled Hipron and My Lonesome Cowboy. Hipron features a woman portrayed as an anime character, squeezing her nipples on her gigantic breasts to form a rope of breast milk behind her with one leg suspended in the air, as though she is about to use the breast milk as a jump rope. My Lonesome Cowboy features a man, also portrayed as an anime character, who is completely nude and squeezing his erect penis, from which a rope of semen has formed, surrounding the man as though it were a lasso. Murakami is also well known for his "Superflat" paintings, a style he created that is influenced by manga and anime. The style depicts "the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture" by flattening forms and giving them no spatial depth. Murakami has also created art for commercial purposes when he collaborated with fashion house Louis Vuitton in the early 2000's, as well as creating the album cover for Kanye West's third studio effort, Graduation.

Takashi Murakami's artist profile on the official Kaikai KiKi Co., Ltd. website, a company of artist production and promotion that Murakami created in 2001.

Murakami's work was recently exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Interview with Murakami by Index Magazine.

Hipron, 1997

My Lonesome Cowboy, 1997

For Louis Vuitton, early 2000's

For Kanye West, 2007