Paradoxically full of both glee and terror, Takashi Murakami’s Mushroom Boom exemplifies the artist’s skillful ability to question the nature of art and culture in Japan using an optimistic and energetic visual language. Murakami began this series in the 1990s, inspired by a 1970s Japanese children’s show, “Time Bokan,” in which the villain would disappear in a skull-shaped mushroom cloud at the end of each episode. Embellishing the eyes of each skull are flowers, a signature motif across Murakami’s oeuvre.
As an art student, Murakami had studied nihon-ga, a form of art developed in the Nineteenth Century, and had painted little else for two years. It was in response to this training that Murakami developed his own unique aesthetic, creating an artistic language that is appropriate to modern Japan, an art suited to the world of the otaku. The subject matter is an extension of tradition, yet it has collided with the world of manga and anime. Rather than preserve culture in aspic, Murakami has developed a manic, energetic style that collides some of the old artistic motifs and values of Japan with its post-War, post-Disney, commercial existence today. To this end, he invented the concept of the Superflat, developing an aesthetic based on a range of concepts including traditional Japanese perspective, digital screens and breaking down notions of the difference between art and craft imposed by the West after two cultural and literal invasions: the 'Opening of Japan' in the Nineteenth Century and the Occupation following the Second World War.

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