Even though Verna may not be a young sprout anymore, she does like to keep up with the current trends in Art. So she invited me to go with her to see the ©Murakami exhibit now showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art / Geffen in Los Angeles. (OK, the copyright symbol thing in front of his name is cute, but that ought to be enough…)
The show is pretty striking and beautifully hung and lighted. As you wander throught the galleries, you follow his work from the early 90s to a huge aluminum sculpture from this year (2007).
There appears to be a lot of stylistic similarity to the Giant Robot / Juxtapos / Beautiful Decay artists: lots of bug eyed / mutant / gothic animal / little girl images. It’s a little glib to just say Murakami is just anime meets Hello Kitty meets “multiple eye mutant faces” but that does definitely describe a lot of it. On the other hand, someone like Alex Grey or Giger has their own style too but don’t have that much of a feeling of being part of a “school.” Murakami is just one of several artists who have transcended Comic-Con to major art galleries.
From a financial point of view, there must be something to his work. According to the exhibition catalog, Louis Vuitton did $300,000,000 in their merchandise with Murakami-designed patterns on them in ONE YEAR. That boggles the brain. Is it marketing, a completely grass-roots buzz, or, just perhaps, a unique and irresistible style?
The collision between art and commerce is always fascinating. The comparison between Murakami and Warhol is not completely random. Warhol also had a factory called “The Factory” where he mass produced artwork with the help of assistants. Warhol was basically one of the first art personal brands, like Price, Kinkade and those folks are now.
There’s a lot we talked about in terms of Murakami and the whole art vs. commerce thing but it would be a day’s typing.
In fact, doing a little researched unearthed at least two good long articles about Murakami, his methods and his ideas.
New York Times Magazine, April 3, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03MURAKAMI.html
and an article on artnet.com “Superflat by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp”
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/drohojowska-philp/drohojowska-philp1-18-01.asp
These articles were written by highly smart and clued-in art critics so you should probably read them rather than the ruminations of some unknown.
linda fetch 
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