Ft. Worth is a nice place for us Dallasites to go to celebrate a friend’s birthday and on a Saturday in Texas, The Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth was a nice respite from the heat of the day. The traveling exhibit was entitled:
Takashi Murakami, Japanese artist, has been known in the art and commercial art world for a while.
Below is one of Murakami’s early works depicting a nuclear holocaust. I thought of Three-Mile Island.
Amazingly, Murakami’s art has morphed from the above to below:
One of his most famous characters is DOB (look at the ears and face). DOB has lots of eyeballs and some scary teeth.
There are usually some bright colors and a lot going on in a Murakami work. His studio employs a large crew, and it takes all the help to produce such a work as the one below:
I don’t try too hard to “get” Murakami. I just like to observe everything going on and enjoy the bright colors and patterns.
These next two works are two of the prettier works from the exhibit:
The round work had skulls imprinted into the black sections that were extremely hard to see.
Speaking of skulls, this selection from another work reminded me of the Catacombs of Paris. However, the skulls in the catacombs are stacked reverently and neatly.
Murakami seems to do a great many self-portraits. The following might be one:
I like these pattern pictures the best. From a film explaining his process, Murakami uses silk screens for many of his works that have the dot patterns.
One of Murakami’s characters:
This approximately 2-foot self-portrait is very unique.
The exhibit had scary teeth and a few epiglottides.
And a room and walls of flowers. The flowers are okay. This wall panel had some blank space in it that shined on my photo.
Art on art:
I liked the flowers way more than I did the mushrooms. I couldn’t even snap the ugly mushrooms.
Patterns closer up:
Dr. Seuss-like animals were included in some of the works.
I did not know what an arhat was until viewing this exhibit. Lots of arhats abounded in many of Murakami’s creations.
Arhats on arhats.
The End
What a fascinating post! I must admit to the art being a little unsettling, and yet it is so excitingly new. I would never have had a chance to see this artist, nor do I know of him (how many Murakami’s are there?! 🙂 so I appreciate you posting on his work.
Hi, Bellezza! I had heard of Murakami and recognized his unique style. He is unapologetic about being commercialized as well as being a non-commercial in his art. He is about my age (56 or 57) and a friend of mine and I went to see his exhibit and were fascinated by it all. Some of it I did not like, but most of it was beautiful. I think it helps to see this art in person. He also had a film showing the process–maybe it is or will be on YouTube. I bet something is. I didn’t know anything about him when we went and I have not looked at his website yet, but I just found it all so interesting.
I thought it very interesting, too, and I myself am 57. It’s a good age, I think. We are not too naive, nor too bitter. 😊
And thanks for commenting. Post on Paris and the Hemingway Conference coming soon!
Looking forward to it!