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Takashi Murakami, famed Japanese pop artist, will be opening a retrospective show this Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Called "© MURAKAMI", the show will feature 90 works of art in varying media such as oil paintings, scultpture, drawings, animations and wallpapers. His art attempts to blur the lines between pop culture, mass media and commercialization. Murakami's themes come directly from Japanese popular culture and are often turned into thirty-foot sculptures of figurines, cell phones and robots. He is directly credited with the creation of a postmodern art movement called "Superflat", a direct reference to the flattened forms found in Japanese graphic art, animation and fine arts. "Superflat" is also an indirect reference to "the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture."


Murakami is heavily influenced by "otaku", a Japanese pop culture term used to describe young Japanese men and women who are obsessed with manga comics and animation. Murakami satirizes this subculture's constant focus on exaggerated sexuality. Like Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami has an unashamed appetite for everything commercial in the world. He has received much criticism, particularly in Japan, over his blatant commercialism. To his critics, his correct response as an artist was, "I really don't care."

The Japanese aren't yet buying much of his art which goes back to his days as a struggling artist with a fascination for animation-inspired works of art. According to Murakami, "I put a lot of emphasis on money, because I've realized that you need time and money to produce art." Oddly enough, Murakami's retrospective will not be seen in Japan. As an art collector, this would be the right time to start buying Murakami's works – right before the Japanese (and other collectors) start buying and moving the prices upward. Pop art is alive and well.

Exhibition: © MURAKAMI April 5 to July 13, 2008 Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, New York (718) 638-5000