February 27, 2019

"The painting is based on a copy of the motif on a ceramic vase from Yuan Dynasty China, and it took me 15 or so years..."

"... to input the content of the motif, the nuance of the brushstrokes, and the historical context into my brain and digest them in my own way. But it is finally done!"

View this post on Instagram

" Qinghua" I presented a drawing of this work, among others, to Larry in person when I was moving from another gallery to be represented by Gagosian. He liked my proposal and asked me many times over the subsequent years, “When will the fish painting be completed?” But, perhaps having given up on it, he stopped asking me about the work in the past few years. The painting is based on a copy of the motif on a ceramic vase from Yuan Dynasty China, and it took me 15 or so years to input the content of the motif, the nuance of the brushstrokes, and the historical context into my brain and digest them in my own way. But it is finally done! I’m so relieved to have delivered on something I had promised to Larry. Each of the works in my current show, GYATEI², comes with a certain drama for me. I felt deeply emotional about opening this show.

A post shared by Takashi Murakami (@takashipom) on

24 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

I've put all my old Murakami tags in order.

If it's just "Murakami," it's Takashi Murakami, the artist.

If it's Murakami, the writer, it's "Haruki Murakami."

I love the writer and I have read 5 books of his in the last year, with a lot of blogging, but my blogging about the artist goes back to 2008, including this trip to the Brooklyn Museum," so he gets the one-name tag.

I love both Murakamis.

Bob Boyd said...

Sorry. It looks like the wall paper in a seafood restaurant to me.

rhhardin said...

The art may be the mouse.

Kay said...

I never was able to get into Murakami’s work until one evening when I was looking at a bunch of it while trippng. I’ve liked it a lot ever since, but maybe not for the same reasons as the rest of the art world? To some he is the Japanese Warhol, but one Warhol is enough for me. There are other “superflat” artists, like Aya Takano, who I enjoy much more. Though not necessarily for the conceptual aspects of their work.

Ann Althouse said...

"Sorry. It looks like the wall paper in a seafood restaurant to me."

Only wallpaper, but what wallpaper.

(That's an allusion to something Cezanne said about Monet.)

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

That is pretty great.

tcrosse said...

What ever happened to van art? You hardly see it anymore. Also orange shag carpeting.

BarrySanders20 said...

Larry is a difficult name to pronounce for most Japanese men.

rcocean said...

Looks fishy to me.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Looks like the worst cultural appropriation since the Rape of Nanjing.

Ryan said...

The text in this guy's Instagram posts has an attention to detail that reminds me of a Yukio Mishima novel. The series of ten points about Kanye is brilliant.

Ryan said...

The Cezanne quote link didn't work for me. I dont use FB. What's the quote?

Bob Boyd said...

‘Monet is only an eye. But what an eye!’

Not sure what Cezanne meant by it.

chickelit said...

What is that "DB" mouse in the photo? Reminds me of Lileks' Twitter avi. Or was it Bissage's?

Levi Starks said...

I like both the variation and subtitle of The coloring

buwaya said...

It would make very annoying wallpaper. But, possibly, very nice curtains.

effinayright said...

John Tuffnell said...
Larry is a difficult name to pronounce for most Japanese men.
************

So is Gary, which sounds to them like their word for diarrhea, "geri".

Ann Althouse said...

"Not sure what Cezanne meant by it."

Look at Cezanne paintings and look at Monet paintings and you should understand. Cezanne took what he saw and ran it through his analytical mind and gave us the results on the canvas. Monet stayed in the visual image and refrained (in Cezanne's view) from using a mental process. He painted the light and shade from a retinal standpoint without tainting it with knowledge of what the objects are and where they are positioned in the 3-D real world.

Ann Althouse said...

The brain has to learn to see. That's why a blind person needs time after sight is restored to be able to see. (That's why the blind man, cured by Jesus, said "I see people; they look like trees walking around.")

Monet (who wasn't blind but late in the game was going blind) had to disconnect the brain to get to the pure-eye level, and Cezanne understood the magnificence of the accomplishment. But Cezanne was also proud of his own work, and I presume he thought the new, high-level analysis was an even greater accomplishment. Of course, earlier artists who used the eye and the mind were less impressive.

Bob Boyd said...

I think I understand what Monet was doing, but not what "analysis" means with regard to what Cezanne was doing.
Monet is a lot easier on the eye.

tcrosse said...

So Monet was Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

FWBuff said...

The Modern Art Museum here in Fort Worth just wrapped up a major Murakami show in 2018. I had never seen his works in person before. They are magnificent, and many of them are done in an enormous scale too. The entire museum was used for the show. The way he honors and manipulates traditional Asian art forms reminds me of how Picasso used and re-interpreted classical Spanish painting.

Maillard Reactionary said...

I enjoyed your interesting comments on Monet and Cezanne, AA. It seems that you have given some thought to this; perhaps more than thought.

In this connection, we are reminded of how much of what we "see" is a creation of our own visual system. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea_centralis#/media/File:AcuityHumanEye.svg -- we have only about 5 degrees of optically sharp vision in the eye, but it doesn't look that way.

This suggests, and I would claim it is true, that may be possible to "see" things that are not obvious to the casual observer, but are objectively there, by the training or cultivation of the visual sense. I find this is the case for myself, when I am doing photography-- it is first of all a matter of noticing what is there.

There is much to be said for the unmediated reaction to visual experience, guided by a disciplined intelligence.

stlcdr said...

“Let me put this into the computer...select the plotter...there it goes...and...done!”