©MURAKAMI at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on artrepublic.com

His versatility, with his wide-ranging repertoire that encompasses art, design, anime, fashion and popular culture, offers us a unique opportunity to get to know the most representative aspects of Japan’s modern lifestyle from the artistic point of view.

Murakami’s personal creative universe draws from traditional Japanese art, contemporary Japanese trends such as anime (animation) and manga (comics) and artistic movements such as American Pop Art and European Surrealism.

With a complete selection of over 90 works in different media such as painting, industrial design, animation and fashion, the exhibition, curated by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel, reveals this artist’s personal universe: from his early works in the 1990s, in which he explored his own identity, to his large-scale sculptures created after 2000, veritable icons of this artist, and ending with his gallery of manufactured objects, his animation projects, his connection to the world of fashion, and his compelling works of recent years.

The relationship with anime (animation) and manga (comics) is central to the aesthetic conception of the artist, who made his debut in the early 1990s. Both genres are, in his own words, “representative of modern everyday life in Japan” and stem from the otaku subculture (a word used to refer to the young and reclusive, obsessed fans of such genres as anime and manga). His work is also influenced by pop culture and by certain European and American artistic movements.

Consequently, Murakami’s praxis brilliantly blends the bright palette of pop, the flatness of traditional Japanese art and certain elements of the Surrealist movement, where dreams played a fundamental role in the creative process. “Throughout his career, Murakami has made his personal and artistic legacy an amalgamation of Japanese, European and American traditions that he has been able to combine in order to develop a unique aesthetic, which has generated a proliferation of distinctive images and icons ,” states curator Paul Schimmel.

OPENING HOURS: Tue -Sun: 10.00 -20.00

Image Credits:

Takashi Murakami, Tan Tan Bo Puking - a.k.a. Gero Tan, 2002, Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 360 x 540 x 6.7 cm (141 3/4 x 283 7/16 x 2 5/8 inches), Collection of Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann, Courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris andMiami. ©2002 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.All Rights Reserved.

Takashi Murakami, Cosmos , 1998Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 300 x 450 cm (118 1/8 x 177 3/16 inches), Collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, ©1998 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. AllRights Reserved.

Takashi Murakami, Lotus Flower (Pink) , 2008, Acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on board, 250 x 50 cm diameter (98 7/16 x 1 15/16 inches)Courtesy of the artist, ©2008 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. AllRights Reserved.