Takashi Murakami

Gagosian Gallery, New York 

Acquired from the above by the present owner 

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although it fails to convey the metallic qualities of the silver background and the iridescence of the black glitter. The overall tonality is deeper and richer in the original. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Takashi Murakami’s best work stages an intricate negotiation between past and present, orient and occident, high culture and mass consumerism. He now irrefutably stands as one of the most internationally acclaimed artists of the Twenty-First Century and Hokkyō Takashi - Kansei exemplifies his eclectic oeuvre. Across the entirety of this visually dense and chromatically brilliant painting, Murakami combines artistic precedents so that the panel takes as much influence from the ancient Eastern practice of decorative flower painting as it does from the formidable landscape paintings of Edo-period masters such as Utagawa Hiroshige or Katsushika Hokusai. Furthermore, channelled through an aesthetic specifically derived from Japanese popular culture, Hokkyō Takashi - Kansei is a superb exposition of Murakami’s trademark 'Superflat' ideology.

As much as any work within Murakami’s oeuvre, the present painting pays deference to historical Japanese art and the revered tradition of Nihonga. The viewer is offered a porthole-like glimpse into a mystical shimmering world, complete with a winding river, traditional inscription, and blossoming floral ornament; the chromed silver backdrop further invokes the lacquered grounds particular to traditional Japanese painted screens. Murakami fuses this old-world scene with his distinctive ‘Superflat’ aesthetic; a visual world that pays homage to the manga cartoons that are so ubiquitous in contemporary Japanese culture. However, Murakami’s use of this technique is more than a mere stylistic choice; it also carries political weight, and should be understood as this artist’s attempt to confront Japan’s cultural identity following the aftermath of the Second World War. Murakami created this style in an attempt to reflect and emblematise the literal and metaphorical ‘flattening’ of Japanese culture – heralded by the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and sustained by the dominance of American and Western surveillance and cultural influence thereafter. In the artist’s own words: “Super flatness is an original concept of the Japanese, who have been completely Westernised” (Takashi Murakami, Superflat Trilogy, Tokyo 2000, p. 155). In this context, we can understand the artist’s eschewal of perspective and Western chiaroscuro as a socio-political statement as much as an artistic one. To render a traditional Japanese scene in a cartoonish visual language and set it against a backdrop of glimmering metallic skulls is more than kitsch visual joke for Murakami; this approach should rather be read as a complete and conscious rejection of Western cultural influence, and a proposition for a new Japanese visual language, appropriate for the Twenty-First Century.

As apparent within the very centre of each elaborately painted bloom of the present work, smiling flowers are the signature motif of Murakami’s ambitious artistic enterprise. When earning his PhD in Nihonga from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, Murakami spent years intensely studying and teaching the art of traditional flower painting: “I spent nine years working in a preparatory school, where I taught the students to draw flowers… At the beginning, to be frank, I didn’t like flowers, but as I continued teaching in the same school, my feelings changed… Each one seemed to have its own feelings, its own personality. My dominant feeling was one of unease, but I liked that sensation. And these days, now that I draw flowers rather frequently, that sensation has come back very vividly. I find them just as pretty, just as disturbing… So I thought if the opportunity arose, I would very much like to make a work in which I would represent them as if in a ‘crowd scene’… I really wanted to convey this impression of unease, of the threatening aspect of an approaching crowd” (Takashi Murakami cited in: Exh. Cat., London, Serpentine Gallery, Takashi Murakami, 2002, pp. 84-85).

At once jubilant and sincere, euphoric and unsettling, Hokkyō Takashi - Kansei is typical of Takashi Murakami’s conceptually deep yet aesthetically flat production. In this work, trademark smiling flowers combine with a pointed evocation of the traditional Japanese landscape to create a pervasive mood of unease that belies its playful aesthetic. The work perfectly presents Murakami’s critical cultural perspective, and aptly demonstrates his status as a truly contemporary and overtly Japanese artist.