Takashi Murakami
Born 1962, Tokyo, Japan
Lives and works in Tokyo and New York

The artwork of Takashi Murakami draws from the language of popular and traditional Japanese culture to comment on their relationship to contemporary life. Murakami’s life-sized cyborgs, or human machines, are meticulously crafted sculptures inspired by the sometimes hard-core computer-generated imagery of the anime (animated film) and manga (comic book) industries that lie at the heart of Japanese popular culture. These hypersexualized comic characters are embedded with references that are familiar to most Japanese audiences but are perhaps enigmatic to others. The wall drawings combine the palette and precision of computer graphics with the composition and formal perfection of traditional Japanese painting.

Takashi Murakami, S.M.Pko2, 1999, (part I: figure; part II: plane, installation view)

Takashi Murakami, Silver Milk, 1999, (installation view)

Takashi Murakami’s paintings and sculptures have been featured in international exhibitions, including TransCulture, 46th Venice Biennale (1995); and Asia Pacific Triennial 1996, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (1996). His work was also included in Japanese Contemporary Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, and Cities on the Move, Secession, Vienna, CapcMusée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (1997); and Abstract Painting, Once Removed, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, and Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (1998). Murakami has had numerous solo exhibitions since 1989, including Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (1993); Feature, Inc., New York (1996); State University of New York at Buffalo and Blum & Poe, Santa Monica, California (1997); and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, and Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (1999)

Education
1986-93 Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, B.F.A., M.A., Ph.D.

Selected Further Reading
Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Takashi Murakami (1999). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Amada Cruz, Dana Friis-Hansen, and Midori Matsui.

Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1996). Exhibition catalogue, text by Midori Matsui.

TransCulture, 46th Venice Biennale (1995). Exhibition catalogue.

Shiraishi Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Takashi Murakami: “Which is Tomorrow?—Fall in Love” (1994). Exhibition catalogue, text by Midori Matsui.

Selected Links
www.kaiyodo.co.jp/atelier/special/smpko2_990112/e_3.html