©MURAKAMI [Signed]

Los Angeles, California & New York, New York: The Museum of Contemporary Art & Rizzoli International, 2008. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Quarto, 327 pages. In Very Good condition with Very Good condition dust jacket. Spine is indigo and cream with white lettering. Dust jacket has mild shelving wear along extremities. Boards have mild shelving wear along spine head, spine tail, and joints. Signed flat and dated "2014" with a small illustration of a flower by Takashi Murakami. PO consignment. Shelved in Rm. A. ©MURAKAMI accompanied Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami's 2007-2009 retrospective of the same name. The exhibition garnered widespread attention from international audiences at its stops in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Frankfurt, and Spain for hosting (amongst other attractions) a fully-functional Louis Vuitton boutique. Murakami excels at blurring these lines between fine art and the consumable, a movement he's coined "Superflat." Influenced by the blend of art and commerce that transpired within Japan's post-war economy, "Superflat" identifies postmodern art which draws inspiration from the two-dimensional color planes most prevalent in Japanese manga and anime. In order to make his work succeed in a society which already combines entertainment with art at both "high" and "low" levels, Murakami gained followers overseas before returning to his home country. His career began in 1994 after receiving a grant through the Asian Cultural Council to work at the PS1 Studio at New York City's MoMA, learning to repackage subcultural concepts as "high-art." Upon his return to Japan, Murakami would use these aesthetics to probe deeply into the fracture between "otaku" (that is, an American obsession with Japanese anime, manga, and culture) and Japanese people living in the wake of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His bright, smiling flowers are one example; while they may have a cheery facade, the flowers represent the complex emotions and trauma inflicted during WWII. Today, Murakami's work is internationally unmistakable, having fortified his position in the art world throughout the 2000s via celebrity collaborations with artists and brands such as Marc Jacobs, Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and, of course, Louis Vuitton. ©MURAKAMI testifies to the growth of a great artist whose impact will have deep reverberations beyond modern art. 1389882. Special Collections. (Inventory #: 1389882)