The story of the rise of the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami seems to be unstoppable. The huge success obtained at the MoCa Los Angeles to open the world tour of his retrospectives was not enough, which until May 2009 will hit the greatest artistic institutions like the Brooklyn Museum New York (until 13th July 2008), the Museum fu Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (September 2008 – January 2009) and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (February – May 2009).The rapport between Murakami and Louis Vuitton which was tightened even more last year was not enough. If already in his first collection, the French fashion house managed to sell Murakami’s shares for over 300 million dollars, now everyone is expecting excellent results for the new “Monogramoflage” creation: an exclusive, limited edition pattern that was given birth to by an unedited blot between the noted camouflage print and one of the symbols of luxury excellence, on sale exclusively in the temporary store that Louis Vuitton opened inside the retrospective of the Brooklyn Museum.
But if during his career, Takashi Murakami has achieved so much, in the past few days, the American magazine “Times” has established his name on the list of “100 Most Influential People for 2008” once and for all. In short, it is the umpteenth list designed by the American magazine to decide the most influential personalities of the year, which has always insisted upon one visual artist, almost as if it were an unwritten rule.
In 2007 acknowledgement awaited Kara Walker, the previous year it was Kiki Smith and in 2004 Bruce Nauman, this year however, the honour goes to the Japanese leader Takashi Murakami. It is a completely deserving honour given that Murakami is one of the most sort after artists on the international contemporary art scene.
At the age of 45, Murakami is not only an artist that produces paintings, sculptures, and installations capable of merging otaku (cults of manga and anime) pop creativity with Japanese traditions, but is also a very capable “businessman” who produces works in series, collector’s items and a vast array of commercial products. He also fairs well in other roles, such as a curator, theorist, and fashion designer. In one of his biographies, publicised in Japan last year, he was presented simply as an entrepreneur explaining that in only eight years he managed to transform a young penniless boy that he was into the millionaire artist that he is now. In short, for Murakami, making art is an activity very similar to commerce, and perhaps exactly for this reason critics have defined him as the “Japanese Andy Warhol”. And the market seems to uphold this definition, given that almost all of his works are sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. The artist’s record exceeds 2 million dollars (“Vapor Trail” sold for 2,393,000 USD in November 2007 at Sotheby’s New York), and it is rumoured that to acquire the installation presented in the 2003 exhibition at the Rockefeller Center New York, someone spent one and a half million dollars. An actual businessman, not only for the success of his works at auction, but also for his capability to manage the Hiropon Factory, which in 2001 became Kaikai Kiki Ltd, derived from the name of two of his leaders which encompass the good and the bad. In three sites, one in Tokyo, and two in New York, more than one hundred people work, bureaucratically clocking in and out. Takashi Murakami is an intelligent artist and to all that criticise him for his economic interests rather than his artistic interests, he sincerely responds: “My aim was to make money and build a traditional Japanese house. My father was a taxi driver and I was poor as a child. I hate living a pauper’s life!”.