Fine Art for Sale – the Murakami exhibition at the MOCA
The
centerpiece of the recently opened
Takashi Murakami exhibition at the Museum for
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is unquestionably the Buddha Oval, an “enormous self-portrait sculpture
in the guise of a Buddha.” The retrospective, which is drawing large crowds, showcases 90 pieces of
Murakami’s work from the early 1990s to the present.
It is hard to pinpoint
what it actually is that Murakami does; it must be somewhere between fine art, popular culture and consumerism.
His imagery draws heavily from Japanese pop-culture, but also from the country’s rich traditions. The
picture that he creates is not an altogether necessarily favorable one – it is full of mockery, ridicule
and even perverse self-representation, says Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator at the MOCA. If you look at
the puffy, silly and cute monsters, or the large, extremely exaggerated sculptures you can see why.
One
section of the exhibitions is exclusively devoted to the collectibles that play an integral part in
the way Murakami wants to reach out to the audience. Blurring the line between commercial and fine art,
he wants every visitor to take something tangible home as a reminder of the experience at the exhibition,
says Schimmel. The long line of people patiently waiting at the gift shop suggests that there is quite
a demand indeed. And yet, this exhibition will probably be remembered as the one which took the concept
of fine art-meets-consumerism one step further.
In conjunction with the
current exhibition, Louis Vuitton set up a temporary store in the middle of the museum. Designed by
the French designer Jean Marc Gady, “the immaculate white cube” offers costly, limited edition handbags
and leather ware with designs by Murakami. In 1991, when Murakami announced: “Takashi first in quality
around the world,” he truly meant it.
Murakami might be accused of selling
out, but the question to be asked is rather what LV gave up to Takashi? He now has permission to use
his version of the highly valued LV logo in his paintings forever. He has given up his identity to create
an even bigger icon.
Even though there might be some bewilderment as
to the propriety of “a high-end commercial venue” in a museum, from a marketing point of view the store
concept is remarkably successful. Schimmel points out, “They are doing insanely well,” and left it at
that.
Link:http://www.moca.org/murakami
