I went to “Takashi Murakami: The 500 Arhats”, a current exhibition in Mori Art Museum. The exhibition is Takashi Murakami's big solo show for the first time in fourteen years in Japan. The highlight is The 500 Arhats, his magnum opus a hundred meter in length.
FYI, Takashi Murakami is the worldly artist from Japan who upgraded Otaku culture to high culture with his term “Superflat”, which describes both the aesthetic characteristics of the Japanese artistic tradition and the nature of post-war Japanese culture and society.
As for my impression for this exhibition, I was overwhelmed by all his works. Each his art piece has amazing quality. Maybe, no one complains about his painting's quality.
In Japan, there are two evaluations, pro and con, about his activities. Cons say that he thinks making works as a part of marketing for the art market too much, so his works shouldn't be regarded as proper Japanese art pieces. As for me, actually, I don't know that his works are good or bad in the art contexts, but I think that his creations have incredible quality as high as national treasures at least if we assume his works as a kind of craftwork.
The most interesting thing for me in the exhibition was his mega production team. When he made The 500 Arhats which is the biggest work in his history, he organized a big team which has over 200 staff members, and the staff members operated in relays around the clock for making big paintings. Moreover, there are huge quantities of directive documents which Murakami gave to his staff in the exhibition. Those are also quite interesting. We can know from the papers how the amazing works was made. Actually, I used to be his volunteer painting staff in my college days, so I felt especially them more interesting than other people. The quality and complexity of direction has become higher level compared with the past.
Speaking of his big works, I remembered an interview article with him at the time when he released his first big sculpture “Double Helix Reversal” at Rockefeller Center in 2003. Maybe, he said at that time like this; our own life-size scale becomes obvious when we don't have any limitations of budget. The people who originally have rich mind can make rich works whereas ordinary people can only make their life-size works. When Murakami made Double Helix Reversal, his client said to him that you don't need to think about a budget, but he couldn't measure up to a mega scale work based on his clients' request well. He may not have been able to overcome his life-size at that time. Sometimes, making works with limitations of budget is easier. If my memory is correct, he said like that in the interview.
Self-consciousness is interesting. For good or ill, it very affects us despite just conscious mind. By the way, he has completely gotten over his life-size in this exhibition.
Anyway, this exhibition is a show which we must go to see even if you don't like Takashi Murakami. His works must surprise you. This precious show runs until March 6, 2016.