This 6 month exhibition at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Art Museum started a week ago. The continuous rain here had kept me away till yesterday. Very glad I got to it.
Takashi Murakami, now 62 years old, has been an artist for 30+ years, but I only heard about his SUPERFLAT about 10 years ago. I may have seen it and a brief interview with him in some TV arts program. A week or so before we left Australia for Kyoto end of 2019, Murakami had a Yokai themed exhibition in Sydney I had wanted to go to, but due to final moving issues, and possibly rain, I didn't get to it.
But I didn't miss out as in the foyer, they had the 2 Murakami Oni that were in that Sydney Exhibition.
So it took some time to finally see his works "in the flesh". SUPERFLAT really caught my attention all those years ago. A current "pop art" inspired by the worlds of Japanese manga and anime.
There were 6 large rooms and each had an explanation like this "manga". In English and Japanese.
I think I was inspired by SUPERFLAT and his Mr.Dob character the first time I saw it. It just "click" with me. He says "Mr.DOB" is from slang word "dobojite" (meaning why?). I had never head that word, and asked my wife, and she said it sounds like a word made up by a child, but she could guess what it meant, but it isn't "Japanaese slang" that anyone would know or have used.
When I go to an exhibition like this, one of the reasons is that I am hoping for it to inspire me in my own work. More so now, since I retired from my technical career. And I think I can see Murakami did, even before this exhibit. Or was that inspired by the same sources Murakami was?
It gets difficult to tell! If I look at my IN THE NEXT DIMENSION comic I can see a few influences
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology
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