Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art: Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto
On our first full day in Kyoto, we visited the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, one of the major museums in Kyoto. We specifically visited the Takashi Murakami: Mononoke Kyoto exhibition, which was a solo show displaying one of Japan’s greatest and most prevalent artists in the contemporary art world, on the ninetieth anniversary since the KYOCERA art museum’s opening. The exhibition aimed to encapsulate Murakami’s practice from beginning to the present, showcasing his development of his projects across the years, iconic flower imagery and Mr. DOB. characters.
Flower Parent and Child (2020), collaboration statue made by Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton in the gardens of the museum.
Upon entering the museum, I was greeted by the large presence of the Flower Parent and Child (2020) statue, an impressive metallic gold statue which foreshadowed the impressive work and iconography yet to come. Additionally, Murakami’s exhibition features his signature, digitally vibrant colour palette paired with beaming metallics, further complementing the vibrancy of Murakami’s works.
Summer FLower Field under the Golden Sky (2023-2024); a work which utilises colour with metallics through the application of gold leaf sheets. This must of been a fiddly, painstaking process!
One of the major developments that Murakami created was DOB, beginning in 1993, a work which has evidently changed and been updated according to the future and technology. The DOB figure, remains to be largely inspired by Japan’s pop culture, consumerism and distinctive flat characteristics of traditional Japanese painting. This character travels through time, which ultimately changes the character’s look- such as its colours. I found it quite fascinating to see how Murakami’s figures changed over time, as you could see them becoming progressively more modern as they emerge from the nineties to the twenty-twenties!
All of Murakami’s figurines displayed in the cabinet!
As someone who is particularly interested in journaling and visually documenting my artistic practice, I absolutely adored how every little one of Murakami’s characters and artistic developments were displayed! They were all laid out in clear display portfolios with notes hanging out from the top of them, with visuals of his characters in the development stage being displayed. I was slightly disappointed that these could not be displayed in their full glory so that they could be flipped through, though its understandable considering the high volumes of visitors. Personally, this threw me back to my VCE days whilst completing three different folio subjects at one time, a period which has definitely promoted the importance of documentation in my current artistic practice whilst completing my degree!
Overall, this gallery visit definitely surprised me and exceeded my expectations, as I did not expect to see Murakami’s work in the flesh whilst in Japan! This was mainly due to my lack of research into the exhibitions that were going to be held in the galleries that we were going to attend, which only added to my experience by retaining that special surprise element! Despite how grand and impressive this exhibition was, I loved how humble and light-hearted Murakami remained throughout his little artist’s statements accompanying his series of works. Murakami’s practice is not only so diverse, but also everchanging to suit the context of when it was made- not only does he preach the importance of learning art history according where you are practicing from, he adapts to the times. Even his use of emojis in his information cards- despite being the same age as my parents, he adapts to modern technology just like how someone thirty years younger than him would!
This exhibition evidently showcases how Murakami created a close link between Japanese pop-culture and the contemporary art space, largely influencing the current Japanese art landscape as we see it today.