Takashi Murakami lecture in Hong Kong – Christies

Takashi Murakami

 

 

 

ARTIST TALK JAPANESE

Asia’s Contemporary Market: The Superflat Market’s Risks and Possibilities
Takashi Murakami, Artist
Friday 28 November 2008, 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Venue: Grand Hall, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

Language: Japanese with English and Putonghua simultaneous interpretation

SYNOPSIS

“Now, we’re seeing cracks develop in the global economic structure. A structure built by rich people for the benefit of rich people.

For many years, art has been thought of mainly as a luxury for these same privileged few. Those who seek to understand the history of museums would do best to look at the Louvre Museum as a guide. In other words, during the French Revolution, the conventional hierarchy of rich and privileged people on the top and less privileged people on the bottom was overturned, and forms of entertainment once thought of only as a luxury for royal consumption became open for all people to enjoy.

I, too, as a Japanese, began my work as an artist with the belief that making works accessible to the general public was an idea at the very core of art itself. But the fact is that my work as well has largely served as a luxury for those who find themselves ahead in our capitalist system, for the rich.

In Japan, it is very difficult for artists to grow and thrive. The reason lies in the country’s post-war tax system. Before WW II, a great number of our wealthy could be relied on as collectors of Japanese art but after the war, the powerful conglomerates were broken up and it became nearly impossible to retain expensive works for more than a generation. Foundations, as well, began to lose their merit and it became harder and harder for them to function. It was under these circumstances that Manga, Anime, Games and the entire Otaku world that surrounds them came to be.

Not a luxury made for the consumption of those who can afford it, but something made for everyone. That’s otaku culture. The Superflat concept that I refer to is simply the setting aside of economic considerations in order to preserve the context provided by that culture.

But now, even Superflat has gradually become a luxury. However, I would remind you of the example that the Louvre provides. Art may travel a long road but it always returns eventually to the hands of the people.

Now I would like to explain a little bit more about Otaku-culture, in the hopes that it will help you understand what the Superflat concept is all about.”

Takashi Murakami

Murakami

Biography

TAKASHI MURAKAMI was born in 1962 in Tokyo, and received his B.F.A., M.F.A. and Ph.D from the Tokyo University of the Arts (formerly known as Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). He founded the Hiropon Factory in Tokyo in 1996, which later evolved into Kaikai Kiki Co., a large-scale art production and art management corporation. Murakami is also a curator, entrepreneur, and a critical observer of contemporary Japanese society. His own work has been shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions at leading institutions around the world, most recently at MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst where his 2008 exhibition, “© MURAKAMI,” was the most comprehensive retrospective of his work to date. © MURAKAMI is currently in the midst of a four-city, three-country tour. Murakami is also internationally recognized for his collaboration with designer Marc Jacobs for the Louis Vuitton fashion house, as well as for his design of the cover art for Kanye West’s double-platinum, 3-time Grammy Award-winning album, Graduation.

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Niubi kids and American art – Top ten shows in Hong Kong September 2008 part 2 – Saatchi Online

 EXHIBITIONS HONG KONG

Top ten shows in Hong Kong this September part 2 published in Saatchi Online Magazine and written by Art Radar Asia’s editor Kate Evans.

Lee Waisler: Portraits and Abstractions
11 September to 11 October
Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Sundaram Tagore’s first solo show in its new gallery in Hong Kong features the eminent American artist Lee Waisler whose works are in permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lee Waisler presents two series of works: portraits of iconic figures and abstracts, both in a trademark style in which he loads the canvas with layers of paints and organic materials to create thick sweeps of pigment separated by knife-sharp ridges. His portrait series includes the stylized over-bold faces of, amongst others, Marilyn Monroe, Mahatma Gandhi, Kafka and Albert Einstein. Their textured planes draw our hands to hover over the surface, curious, wanting to touch but not quite daring: a potent echo of the real life lure of iconic idols and our visceral compulsion to draw near, look closely and touch. For this show Waisler has created an interesting new body of work incorporating Chinese culture and imagery including a portrait of Anna May Wong, a famous Chinese-American actress of the 1930s and 1940s and Doctor Ho, a renowned healer from China.

 

Larry Yung: Desire – Loss

Amelia Johnson Contemporary
4 September to 27 September 2008

In the works of this much anticipated show two years in the making, Chinese American artist Larry Yung places idealized images of American and Chinese people alongside material objects of desire and cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse. Smiling characters are painted with a flatness reminiscent of the iconography of Chinese propaganda posters and 1950’s US advertisements of the American Dream. This juxtaposition invites us to examine the complex relationship between the demise of the American Dream and the rise of Chinese aspirations. His stiff stylized figures appear artificial and remind us material prosperity is impermanent and illusory: part of a fleeting cycle of lack, desire, success and loss. His work has been commissioned by Proctor & Gamble, Pierre Cardin and Nordstroms and is held in various private collections including those of Marvel Comics, Esquire Magazine and Microsoft.

 

Niubi Newbie Kids
Mixed media group exhibition: Chen Fei, Chen Ke, Zhou Jin Hua, Zhang Ye Xing, Zhou Yi Qian, Feng Wei
19 September to 13 October 2008
Schoeni Gallery

Schoeni was pivotal in the nineties in promoting the art of then unknown Chinese political pop artists such as Yue Min Jun, Zeng Fan Zhi and Zhang Xiaogang, many of whom have since gone on to achieve iconic status and high auction prices. This September the gallery is showing the next generation of 80s born unknowns, the rebellious Niubi Kids. Untranslatable and a play on Chinese slang curse words, the word ‘Niubi’ is used by young people to identify the new wave of rebellious cool young Chinese. Also termed China’s ‘Me’ generation, a product of China’s One Child policy, they are less concerned with politics than with themselves, issues of identity and alternative worlds. This provoking not-to-be missed show of mixed media works, replete with influences from the internet, comics, video games and Japanese culture, is the result of two years work by the gallery and is the first in a biannual series.

Contemporary Tibetan art moves away from its religious origins

Gyatso My Identity No 21

TIBETAN ART TRENDS

In 2003, thirteen Tibetans and two Chinese living inside Tibet formed the Gendun Choephel Artists Guild, an organization of artists that hosted monthly rotating exhibits. They dismissed the general perception among Chinese of Tibetans as simply “ethnic,” and they fiercely defended their right to express their own identity.

It is a relatively recent situation for Tibetans to remove art from its iconographical, religious origins of thangkas and scrolls and recontextualize it within the modern dialectic. The most striking example of this process can be found in the work of Gonkar Gyatso, an artist who uses ideological identity portraiture and sophisticated graphics to discuss the modernist dilemma facing contemporary Tibetans. Gyatso has resided within Tibet, China, India and London, and he reflects on his diverse identity within these different locales.

In My Identity 1-4, Gyatso represents himself alternately as a Tibetan native painting a traditional thangka; a Communist Chinese painting a portrait of Mao; a refugee painting a picture of The Dalai Lama; and finally, an international urban sophisticate painting a picture of the cosmos. Who, however, is the real Gonkar?
What is his actual tradition? Where does the truth lie?

Gande New Scripture Series Micky Thangka

Gande is another artist with a deep appreciation of traditional forms. He imbues them with a secondary, critical meaning.

The theme of taking important religious symbols and substituting capitalist ideology is highlighted in his hilarious New Scripture Series piece, Mickey Thangka, which features the tig-say faces of the Buddha and Mickey Mouse.

Nortse Group Photo

Then, there is the provocative work of Nortse. Using both painting and photography, he depicts images of individuals who are rendered mute by their covered faces.

The artist Kesang works with the notion of the bardo, the realm one enters after death and before rebirth.

Pewang takes as his subject matter the five mental afflictions of traditional Buddhist thought: desire, aggression, greed, jealousy, and pride. He paints them as celestial deities incorporating traditional flowers, clouds, hand gestures, shading of the body and flora backgrounds.

Contemporary Tibetan artists defy expectations. Many Western Buddhist practitioners would like to see them still produce strictly phonographic, spiritual art. The ecumenical modern art world looks at them as a fourth world minority playing catch up with the post modern predicament and a subset of the white hot Chinese art world. Tibetans themselves are split on the issue. They understand artists must address the rapid social, psychological and economic changes they are confronting as a people but are equally concerned they will lose their traditions in the overwhelming cultural tsunami of rapid globalization. What is certain is that the Gendun Choephal School is sure to address the current and future changes roiling Tibet.

Source: Realitysandwich

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Survey exhibition in Vancouver, New York shows Manga, cartoon art in context

SURVEY OF MANGA ANIME COMICS AND ART IN VANCOUVER NEW YORK to March 2009

The influence of manga, anime, video games and cartoons on contemporary art is one of the most prominent current trends.

The exhibition “Krazy” brings the worlds of anime, comics, cartoons, video games, manga, graphic novels and contemporary art together in one exhibition.

The exhibition is co-curated by some of the art forms’ most influential artists and cultural producers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman, The Sims video game creator Will Wright, comic artist Seth and DreamWorks animated feature film director Tim Johnson. Conceived and developed by Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator Bruce Grenville, the exhibition will travel to a New York City arts institution in March 2009.

One of the largest exhibitions ever organized by the Gallery, “Krazy!” will occupy two floors of gallery space and is designed in collaboration with Tokyo-based architectural firm Atelier Bow-Wow-a design team renowned for their understanding of informal culture and ability to enhance communal visual experiences.

Divided into seven sections defined by medium, the exhibition takes viewers through ever-changing gallery environments, including a mini-theatre for viewing animated cartoons and anime, immersive video spaces and innovative reading environments for visitors to experience a deluge of manga, graphic novels and comics.

The exhibition comprises more than 600 artworks, including original sketches, concept drawings, sketchbooks, storyboards, production drawings, films, video games, animation cels, three dimensional models, sculptures, books, manga and much more.

Other participating artists: Lynda Barry, Marcel Broodthaers, Chester Brown, Milt Gross, Pierre Huyghe, Tim Johnson, Harvey Kurtzman, John Lasseter, Roy Lichtenstein, Christian Marclay, Winsor McCay, Sid Meier, Claes Oldenburg, Nick Park, Raymond Pettibon, Seth, Chris Ware

Asian participants include Iwatani TORU, Mamoru OSHII, Mamoru NAGANO, Shigeru MIYAMOTO, Yoko KANNO, Ichiro ITANO,  Moyoco ANNO.

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