PPP - Paris - Takashi Murakami

TAKASHI MURAKAMI - GALERIE PERROTIN 

Visiting a number of galleries over the course of my time in Paris, one which had left the most lasting impression was the Takashi Murakami exhibition at the Galerie Perrotin, Murakami is a contemporary Japanese artist whose work is easily recognisable through his own style which has become renowned. Murakami uses a number of different media, from sculpture to print and each with its own distinctive look, he also works with commercial media such as animation, fashion and merchandise. Murakami founded the art movement 'Superflat', which takes influence from anime and manga and other consumer forms of art in Japan. Murakami is highly praised for his work, which is said to blur the line between high and low art.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition were unique and individual pieces, though many pieces had a similar style, the exhibition was a good mixture of all of Murakami's work, it showcased his different styles and medias used. Murakami worked a lot with plastics and thick acrylic, this gave the work a shine and the light hits off of them and really shows the colours and angles off. It is easily seen that he combines commercial art with fine art creating work which content can be seen as 'weak' and be showcasing it as art with bold colours and a strong form, this sculpture above, for example, uses anime/manga style skulls as a gold wall piece, this combination makes for a unique and interesting piece.

Again a reoccurring symbol within Murakami's exhibition was the skull, though these compositions took a completely different form and style in comparison to the gold sculpture. These pieces were acrylic plastic circles with painted image inside, these pieces took up the entire wall, measuring at about 200cmX200cm. The colours are all built up well which gives these pieces a lot of depth and a hierarchy which can be clearly seen.

Murakami's painted pieces are all to a very large scale and as seen in this piece it can be seen that he uses a number of painting techniques, one being spray painting, using this a means to write type or as a background layer to bring out his foreground content. Again using the anime/manga style of characters and colour choices, in this piece, he also combines it with old Japanese styles and symbols such as can be seen in this piece a dragon, this combination of styles makes the piece more visually powerful, because of its contrasts in styles and content.

Another example of Murakami's style change, this self-portrait style sculpture stood out within the exhibition as something completely different from all his work. Though it has the face of Murakami the rest of the sculpture is fantasised to resemble a god. Murakami has a vast and diverse portfolio which inspires me to be diverse and changeable within my own work.