The Murakami Series: Reconciling with Personal History-Art as a Response to Life
Today is Day 4 of my week long series featuring the works of Takashi Murakami.
If you, like me, believe that there is an art to business, to our careers and to our lives, then I think you'll find this series (along with the quotes and excerpts I've included) especially interesting.
"Before the big earthquake, it looks like I completely forgot I came from Japan..."I woke up when I [saw] the Japanese—the earthquake's reality." The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Northern Japan in March of 2011 ignited a creative shift in the artist's practice. Murakami began introducing Buddhist monk characters called arhats into his work. Murakami created a 300' long painting in 2012 called The 500 Arhats, which really kicked off the theme.” Wired
“Each creation begins as a sketch in one of numerous pocket-sized notebooks. Full-size drawings are then scanned into the computer. From there, Murakami "paints" his works in Adobe Illustrator, tweaking the composition and cycling through thousands of colors until at last he hands the finished versions off to his assistants. His staff then prints out the work on paper, silk-screens the outline onto canvas, and commences painting. Without this embrace of technology, Murakami says, "I could have never produced this many works this efficiently, and the work wouldn't be as intense." Wired
“With over 100 studio assistants under his employ, Murakami compared the process of putting together the massive composition in the way a director pieces together a film: "Everything came from the Star Wars stuff. [George] Lucas released the 'making of' video. And then I was learning oh my god this is a process. Okay, director is making for the scenario, the storyboard, and then shooting a film, and editing. This is a process. And maybe in a painting it's much easier to [borrow] it from this system." Creators
(Through September 24th, 2017, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is holding an exhibition of the work of Takashi Murakami called "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg". The exhibition features 50 works spanning 3 decades of his career, showcasing how the artist operates at the intersection of art, commerce and popular culture. Click here for details.)
