Japanese Contemporary Art: Happy Birthday, Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami is one of the brightest representatives of contemporary psychedelic pop art. Murakami's works amaze with their cheerfulness, brightness and childish immediacy. The artist is active on social networks, he communicates with fans, constantly publishes photos on Instagram.

Takashi Murakami even manages to combine the talent of an artist, sculptor, designer and businessman. He himself oversees his exhibitions, studies the market and its mechanisms, collaborates with fashion brands. Murakami has his own studio, Kaikai Kiki, where he works on cartoons.

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Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo. Here he received his doctorate from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he studied the nineteenth century traditional Japanese painting known as Nihonga. The popularity of anime directed Murakami's interest in animation, saying that "it represents modern life in Japan". Murakami's work was also influenced by American pop culture - animation, comics, fashion. The artist always names his works mysteriously, strangely and sometimes difficult to translate.

“Who is afraid of red, yellow, blue and death”, 2010, Gagosian Gallery.

Homage to Mono Pink, 1960 G, 2013, Perrotin Gallery.

In 2000, Murakami curated the Superflat exhibition on the influence of the entertainment industry on contemporary aesthetics and the perception of contemporary art. In his works, Murakami balances between East and West and plays with opposites. In 2007, a retrospective exhibition "© Murakami" was held, which was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Museum fur Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In 2010, the artist's works were exhibited at the Palace of Versailles in France.

"Tan Tan Bo - communicates", 2014, Gagosian Gallery.

“I left my love behind, I feel every memory”, 2010, Tarot Gallery, Japan.

"And then, when it's all over ... I changed what I was yesterday, like an insect crawling on the skin", 2009.

"Cry of the Newborn Universe", 2014, Gagosian Gallery.