About Takashi Marakami

Takashi Marakami, one of the world’s most celebrated Japanese creative artists and entrepreneurs, is known for his wide and insightful experience as well as his ability to appreciate Japanese aesthetics. He learned to paint Japanese art while studying at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he obtained his first degree and Ph.D. in 1986 and 1993, respectively. It was his unrelenting hard work and fiery ambition that transformed and spearheaded his career, which saw him making his first artistic debut in Europe. Being well-trained and skilled personnel in matters Japanese traditional arts,

His first entry into the European market served as an eye-opener a factor which precipitated and facilitated him to stardom. In his quest to finding the place to showcase his artistic paints, he juxtaposed between the aesthetics Japanese animation, flat composition of Manga painting. His unique painting style, which basically focused and relentlessly emphasized on ‘’two-dimensional forms and bold”, focus imagery, as a result precipitated the rise of an artistic movement referred as lineage of Eccentrics and Superflat, a great movement that not only revolutionized but also exalted the interaction between the commercial and the world’s most profound art.

Therefore this scope-will in depth measures try to tabulate and discuss Takashi Murakami’s Lineage of Eccentrics and a flat overview of super flat theory and exhibition in conjunction to its implications to success. His theoretically argument firmly based on the Lineage of Eccentrics he counted times without number to shade light on the direct similarity between the aesthetics of Edo-period and the Japanese contemporary art. Murakami later in the years started his own branding devices as well as a production studio in the quest to arrange and re-arrange both the Super flat and the Lineage of Eccentrics as a unique brand organization in Japanese artistic world. In an attempt popularize his theory both in Europe and North America a huge number of his competitors most of the times misinterpreted and analyzed it as super flat. Yet, truth the wholesome effect of the Lineage of Eccentrics theory do demoralize majority of Japanese artists not of his caliber whose their main work and contribution has minor relation to his aesthetic pop.

In order understand how Murakami achieved this goals, the thesis will analyze the claims made in the Lineage of Eccentrics theory. This is will therefore be followed closely by examinable drive towards finding out the great impacts and contributions on the Lineage of Eccentrics. Murakami’s Lineage of Eccentrics gained great dominance overseas. This thesis statement concludes with depth conclusive remarks from David Elliotts ‘’Japan Society exhibition titled Bye Bye Kiity’’ ‘’Between Heaven and Hell in Japanese Contemporary Art’’.

Nevertheless, “Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics” is extremely quirky. It’s precise and accurate, mounting a flag on an incontrovertible art-historical ground. That in its state should be a desirable topic in the arts of historical vibrancy hence the reason why such demonstrations are key, his show of interest to collaboration with an enthusiastic Japanese art historian Nobuo Tsuji that marked Murakami with the greatest honor and found himself into the Museum of Fine Arts’ at the MFA.

Murakami’s most epic paintings, ”Transcendent Attacking a Whirlwind,” is dangling firmly at the MFAs main entrance. A winding sea monstrous creature spirals in the middle of it. Water curls and vividly spirals in all directions in the paint-splash theme over a finely smoothened model surface. Superhuman- Transcendent countenance of a cyclone from both ends of the enormous gigantic painting, a huge, deep blue and double-jointed. As fierce and dangerous as they may appear, these avenging immortals are overgrown and endearing, painted with affectionate humor. 

1970 Tsuji’s book, ”Lineage of Eccentrics,” mesmerized the opinion believers of Japanese art history, with his detailed painting of playful outliers like Shohaku and Utagawa Kuniyoshi, owner of mischievous cats and the belligerent warriors in the MFA’s shows. Ernest Francisco Fenollosa was among the first and early formulators of the MFA, he was very instrumental and a significant figure for He facilitated the building of a museum in Japanese collection. Tsuj came in handy during the re-catalog in 2005. Murakami had a solo show as well. Anne Nishimura Morse, the MFA’s senior curator of Japanese Art, worked with both men, and this singular show grew from the ground of their longstanding relationships.

Therefore, from Europeans point of view, Murakami is a genuine pop: Like Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, he parlays antagonizing images into commercial potential brands. The show, diligently orchestrated by Morse, demonstrates out how deeply he is rooted and vividly understood his cultural heritage, and mostly in the playful art brought forth by Tsuji.

Murakami displayed the long painting on silver leaf and placed his well-known mouse-eared cartoon character Mr. DOB at the significant ends. The silver in ”Impossible Aim” illuminating on picture plane.

Art, culture, society and customs are widely two-dimensional. It is in the arts that this sense has been flowing beneath the history of Japanese. Today, the sense is most present in Japanese games and anime, which have become powerful parts of world culture.

Murakami’s lineage of eccentric of Japanese Art consists of panels in varying sizes depicting artworks and commercial products that came together and most of the time overlap each other in competition for the viewer’s attention. The figure of the dancing man reproduced many times and in most poses, occupies the majority of Murakami’s art.

Hokusai term himself as a theorist of Japanese art. His success was in large part responsible for his enhanced profile abroad. Three factors brought about key role in the persuasive power of Murakami’s lineage of eccentric. The first is that Murakami’s pop aesthetic and his theory were developed specifically as commerce to the North American and European art markets. Also the stemming from the commercial appeal is the problem of self-management, as defined by Jean-François Lyotard. Murakami has continued to grow even though his appeal is directed at an outside Japanese audience. His position as an authority on the historical development of Japanese art is difficult for the uniformed, casual observer to call into question. Lastly, Murakami’s role as an organizer and his success at New York’s Japan Society in 2005 further reinforce appearance of legitimacy.

The lineage of eccentric discourse has proven difficult for managers, critics and artists alike. It has dominated conversations around contemporary Japanese art that other contemporary artists are often read in the context of lineage of eccentric rather than as individuals with their own unmatched, prominent philosophy.

The produced group exhibition of contemporary Japanese art by David Elliot had experience curating group shows all over the world, illuminating both modern and contemporary art from various regions.

”The Bye Bye Kitty” Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art”, the main target of the exhibition was noble. From its concept, composition, and marketing, Elliott’s goal was to broaden the common view of Japanese art in North America. The exhibition challenged the notion that Japanese art is limited, thematically, to pop cultural referents homage to amine, Manga, and a predilection for cuteness and infantilization. Nevertheless, Murakami Takashi played no small part in the creation and perpetuation of this myth, and, in his essay for the Bye Bye Kitty!!! Exhibition catalogue, David Elliott is quick to note Murakami’s as the prolific dominant of the Japanese art scene

Contrary to Murakami’s privileging in the 2005 Japan Society exhibition Little Boy, Adrian Favell took great care to note the emphasis that the Japan Society’s Bye Bye Kitty!!! Placed on artist Aida Makoto, Elliott’s reading of Aida’s body of work situates him in binary opposition to Murakami’s cute super flat philosophy. However, the theme of David Elliott’s exhibition downplays the work of the other fifteen artists represented. In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Japan Society claimed that all fifteen artists highlighted were converged in discursive unity by a single commonality: and their ability to push the limits.

Thus, Elliott argues that all of the artists represented in Bye Bye Kitty” Represent a uniquely anti-Lineage of eccentric groundswell. However, the main Murakami work is the super flat philosophy which many artists cannot defeat. His museum also adds to his prolific work which has improved the Japanese art all over.

Elliott further confounds issues of a Murakami-inflected Kawaii aestheticism versus an anti-Kawaii sensibility by asserting that Aida Makoto’s perversion of the Kawaii represents a distinct break from Murakami and other earlier artists’ engagement with cuteness. For example, in Elliott’s critique of Hara-kiri School Girls, Elliott remarked that ”Aida transforms a time-

In the painting, Murakami pulls direct influence from the philosophy of the famous United States Pop artist Andy Warhol. Murakami’s painting is just one in a larger series, all similarly titled, with variations limited mostly to color palette. These were often displayed side-by-side, similar to Warhol’s rows of Campbell’s Soup cans. Nonetheless, much of Warhol’s work was produced by a mechanistic silk-screening process while Murakami’s paintings are produced by hand in brush and acrylic. At Warhol’s studio, termed the Factory, he often had friends and partners help in the silk-screening process. Similarly, Murakami designs all of his work and then charges his assistants with the execution of the painting.

Conclusively, Murakami described the impetus for the creation of Mr. DOB as, ”an attempt to crush the New York art scene,” and claimed to be unsurprised at the largely poor reaction it elicited from critics. Perhaps Mr. DOB’s unwelcome reception should have been expected, as it was developed simply in order to tap into and subsequently level the American art market. Ostensibly defeated, Murakami then prepared for his next gesture to the ”Western” art world: his super flat theory. His museum has become the explained a lot about Japanese art and has made many mostly in Boston to understand their culture