Takashi Murakami is sometimes called the “Warhol of Japan.” He is most notable for his blending of pop culture with traditional fine art in a style he calls superflat. He coined the term in the 1990s, and it has gone on to represent a new genre of artists who “flatten” traits from “high art” (museum art) and “low art” (popular figures like Hello Kitty) into one piece. Other popular artists, like artist Yoshitomo Nara and anime director Koji Morimoto, have since embraced the genre. One of Murakami’s aims is to critique the emptiness of consumerist culture, but he also draws a lot of inspiration from his upbringing in U.S.-influenced post-WWII Japan.
The Classical Roots of a Modern Revolutionary
Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962. He grew up in a household that greatly valued high art, but he absorbed other stylistic influences from anime and comic books. His parents would tell him to write reviews of exhibitions he visited. If he refused, they would punish him by not giving him his dinner that night. While his mother was a homemaker who knew needlepoint and textiles, his father worked at an American naval base. Due to this connection, Murakami has remarked that he was influenced by American media like Steven Spielberg films.
The young boy knew he wanted to be an artist growing up, but he resented that “low art” was not respected like “fine art.” This preoccupation drove him deeper into geek, or “otaku,” culture, which is characterized by an obsessive interest in anime and manga. However, an injury in the 7th grade set back Murakami academically. After breaking bones in his hand and skull, he could not attend school for a month. This affected his progress so much that he faced trouble getting into an art university later.
He was finally accepted into the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in the 1980s. This came at a cost. He had to choose the least competitive subject for entry. Murakami chose to study the traditional 19th-century Japanese painting style of Nihonga, earning his doctorate. He continued painting into the 1990s, but found this traditional style of art dull and unsatisfying. He began to search for a style that felt relevant to modern-day Japan.
While Murakami officially called his style superflat in 2000, he was developing it throughout the 1990s. His deep study of Meiji masters like Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Soga Shōhaku formed the foundation for his flat perspective, crisp contour lines, and spatial composition. He was also greatly influenced by a year he spent in New York City between 1994 and 1995 on a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council. It was here, surrounded by Western Appropriation Art and Neo-Pop, like Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol, that Murakami realized he needed a signature, digestible identity. He famously decided that to compete globally, he had to embrace what made post-war Japan uniquely original: anime, manga, and otaku.
Understanding Superflat as Art Theory and Cultural Critique
Murakami created his iconic alter-ego Mr. DOB right before leaving Japan in 1993, but New York was where he experimented with bringing the character into physical space. In 1995, he launched giant inflatable Mr. DOB sculptures at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in Manhattan. While the public initial reaction was modest, it marked his pivot into monumental, cartoon-inspired sculptures.
Inspired directly by Andy Warhol’s The Factory, Murakami founded his Hiropon Factory in 1996 upon returning to Japan as a production workshop. He adopted Japan’s atelier system, one in which assistants and apprentices are hired to create pieces together. Two years later, he created one of the pieces that shot him to fame.
727 (1996) is a contemporary triptych of a character named Mr. DOB. His features mimic the expressive faces in Japanese anime, with exaggerated features like giant teeth and eyes. The character resembles an eccentric mascot, but a look into what the name means reveals more of Murakami’s intention. DOB stands for dobozite, which roughly translates to “why?” Meanwhile, 727 is a reference to the Boeing airplanes that Murakami grew up seeing in his dad’s workplace. The wave carrying Mr. DOB is inspired by Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai (famous for The Great Wave off Kanagawa).
This art must be understood as a part of Murakami’s critique of the West. His parents lived to see U.S. bombings in Japan, as well as heavy sanctions and an American military presence. Today, Murakami views Japan’s obsession with violence, cuteness, and fetishization of innocence as a product of the West’s intervention. To him, the West is uncomfortable appreciating low art because it wants to preserve an elite hierarchy.
Decoding the Characters of the Murakami Universe
727 was followed in the late 1990s by his Otaku Sculptures, hyper-sexualized tropes. In 1997, he debuted Hiropon, a life-sized fiberglass sculpture of an anime girl whose skipping rope is made of her own jetting breast milk. In 1998, this was followed by My Lonesome Cowboy, depicting an anime boy slinging a lasso of semen. In 2008, it was sold for $15.1 million at a Sotheby’s New York auction.
Murakami’s other most famous artworks include Supernova (1999), Flowers, Flowers, Flowers (2010), Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, Blue, and Death (2011), and Chakras Open and I Drown Under the Waterfall of Life (2017).
Murakami debuted two new characters, Kaikai and Kiki, in 2001 and renamed his factory Kaikai Kiki Co. after them. The cutesy characters function as his spiritual avatars and mischievous sidekicks. The phrase “kaikai kiki” was not invented by Murakami, but was used by art scholars in the 16th century to describe the style of the Momoyama-period master Kanō Eitoku as something simultaneously terrifying and beautiful. Kaikai means “bizarre, eerie, or monstrous,” while Kiki means “delightful, refined, or captivating.” But in Murakami’s world, their personalities are reversed, with Kaikai being cheerful, gentle, and childlike, while Kiki is mischievous, slightly demonic, and unpredictable.
Kaikai and Kiki frequently appear together across prints, colossal sculptures, animation clips, including music videos like Kanye West’s Good Morning, and plush toys. They perfectly encapsulate Murakami’s Superflat theory, flattening the line between ancient Japanese art history, modern anime, and commercial product marketing.
Redefining High Fashion Through the Louis Vuitton Collaboration
Bringing his connection with pop culture full circle, Murakami started a collaboration with major brand Louis Vuitton, led by Marc Jacobs, in 2003. The working relationship spanned 13 years, until 2015, resulting in several highly sought-after collections.
In 2003, they released Monogram Multicolore, a rainbow monogram that defined 2000s “Y2K” fashion. It generated over $300 million in its first year alone and was famously carried by pop culture figures like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Kim Kardashian. This was followed shortly after by Cherry Blossom, which combined LV canvas with Murakami’s signature smiling sakura (cherry blossom) faces.
Until 2015, the fashion giant produced a variety of handbags, belts, wallets, bracelets, and much more with Murakami’s kitschy designs on them. The partnership radically lowered the average age of Louis Vuitton’s customer base, transforming a conservative trunk-maker into a global symbol of cool.
Louis Vuitton renewed its collaboration with Murakami for the 20th anniversary, featuring a campaign with house ambassador Zendaya.
The Enduring Global Legacy of Japan Pop Art
As with any high-profile artist, Murakami has also received a sharp share of criticism. In 2010, he showed Miss Ko2, another sexual statue, alongside other sculptures in France’s Palace of Versailles. Many citizens thought the exhibition was degrading to Versailles’ historical splendor. In fact, 11,000 people signed a petition to end the exhibition.
Protesters hosted a mock contemporary art exhibit, bringing in objects like paintings of cats’ penises and urinals to prove their point that the exhibition was just shock value. Murakami’s response was unbothered. He viewed the exhibition as a “face-off between the baroque period and postwar Japan” that he hoped would inspire shock.
It’s also ironic that his art is most popular in the regions that he critiques. Murakami has said that Japanese people reject his style, and that they are jealous of anyone successful outside his nation. In a 2015 interview with The Japan Times writer Andrew Lee, Murakami stated, “The Japanese media also only ask really silly questions that don’t get to the core of what I am trying to do.”
However, he has still earned his place in the art history hall of fame. He has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. One can argue that he makes the art world more approachable and less elitist. Some of his pieces may go for millions, but his factory turns characters like Mr. DOB and his psychedelic flowers into trinkets. For example, his happy flowers are the face of fluffy cushions and colorful keychains.
Murakami has stated, “In Japan, after having lost World War II, the hierarchy that used to exist in the society, from the rich to the poor, has been flattened, especially by the winners, by Americans. As a Japanese artist debuting in America, I really had to bring that kind of theme into the work…”
