January 29, 2016

OPENING

Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection―From Shōhaku and Rosanjin to Anselm Kiefer―
Venue:
Dates:

Yokohama Museum of Art
January 30 (Sat) - April 3 (Sun), 2016

This exhibition is the first large-scale public showing of the renowned contemporary Japanese artist
Takashi Murakami's private collection centered around contemporary art.
Murakami (b. 1962) received the first Ph.D. in Nihonga (Japanese Painting) to be granted by theTokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Fine Arts, and has since come to be known worldwide for his
extremely polished works blending contemporary art and traditional Japanese painting, high culture and pop
culture, East and West. He has held a number of solo exhibitions at prestigious museums around the world.
While energetically pursuing his creativity as an artist, Murakami has also been active as a curator,
gallerist, and producer. In recent years, in particular, he has become an avid collector, acquiring a wide
variety of artworks in and out of Japan with a perceptive eye and unique aesthetic sensibility. This little
known collection, while loosely focuing on contemporary art, also includes old Japanese and Asian artifacts,European antiques, contemporary pottery, and folk art and crafts. Murakami’s guiding concept of Superflat
not only refers to formal aspects he identifies with Japanese art, such as flatness of the picture plane anddecorativeness, but also extends to a view of art that rejects hierarchical divisions between different artistic
genres or eras and frees artistic activities from definitional boundaries. It is a dynamic, expansive conceptthat applies to the entirety of the artist’s life and activity as he wrestles with the big question, “What is art?”from various angles.
This exhibition of Murakami’s unique collection, with its overwhelming quantity and diversity, will
provide an insight into the sources of the artist’s aesthetic ideas, the nature of art and desire, and themechanisms that create value in contemporary society, while also encouraging viewers to question art'sconventional context.

Takashi Murakami and his Superflat Collection, Photo: Kentaro
Hirao

■About Takashi Murakami’s Exhibition at YokohamaMuseumTakashi
of ArtMurakami (born in 1962) first emerged as an extraordinary Japanese artist who aspired toattain international recognition by pursuing an original approach that diverged from Western aesthetic values
when he was a student at Tokyo University of the Arts.
After earning the university’s first Ph.D. in Nihonga (Japanese Painting) in 1993, Murakami shifted
his focus to the world of contemporary art, introducing Japanese subcultures such as anime, manga, figures,and characters to fine art in the 1990s, and carefully developing the Superflat concept, which upended
Western aesthetic views and values. Through his extremely accomplished works, which traverse categoriessuch as contemporary art and Japanese classical painting, high and popular culture, and East and West,
Murakami has continued to provoke the art world and garner international acclaim.
While energetically pursuing a creative path, Murakami has proved to be a talented critic, curator,gallerist, producer, and manager. Underlying these activities are his personal skepticism and his passion for
innovative types of thought and criticism that expand the artistic framework, the ideas and systems that
determine artistic values, and the development of the art market and artistic talents.
Continuing to take on challenges of all kinds, in recent years Murakami has also begun to pour hisheart and soul into building up an enormous collection of art. He first approached me in 2014 and proposed
an exhibition of his own collection. I was not only overwhelmed by the quantity and diversity of his collection,
but also fascinated by the items and artworks. They were both compelling and outlined the trajectory of theartist’s career and his aesthetic values. Deciding to accept his proposal, I rushed to adjust our exhibitionschedule to overlap with Murakami’s solo show at the Mori Art Museum, which had been already fixed bythen. I commissioned Akiko Miki as guest curator to work with the Yokohama Museum of Art’s curatorial teamto alleviate complications in organizing the exhibition.
Murakami first became involved in the vast field of collecting after acquiring a Shino tea bowl once
owned by Kitaōji Rosanjin. Using a wide range of methods, such as bargaining with antique art dealers,bidding in auctions, and making purchases at galleries and on the Internet, Murakami’s energetic efforts torealize this collection of several thousand items in less than a decade and the works it contains are atestament to his remarkable abilities.
To Murakami, who has continually confronted overarching questions like “What is art?”, “How is thevalue of art determined?”, and “What is a collection?”, creating a collection is a new challenge and a mark of
his intention to constantly transcend his own limitations.
After plans for this exhibition were finalized, Murakami’s collection has continued to grow, so the listof works has continued to be revised despite the fact that the items have already been transported to themuseum.
To Murakami, this is an “alternative solo exhibition” and a demonstration of his critical attitude
toward the existing system of art.
January 2016
Eriko Osaka
Director, Yokohama Museum of Art

■The Five Sections
Takashi Murakami’s Superflat concept does not limit itself to mere formal concerns such as
two-dimensionality and decorativeness; it frees artworks and artifacts from the constraints of historicalperiods, genres, and existing hierarchies, and proposes a parallel structure for them. Furthermore, it
encompasses artistic activities that transcend any specific framework. It can also be understood as awide-ranging and dynamic concept that comprehensively expresses the artist’s overall practice, or life, inwhich he has continually tackled the eternal question, “What is art?”, from a variety of different angles.
This exhibition sets out to examine Murakami’s experimental activities through an exploration of hiscollection. Assembled based on the artist’s unique eye and aesthetic, the collection currently includes over5,000 items, encompassing domestic and international contemporary art, Japanese antiquities, Japanese,Asian, and European antiques, crafts from contemporary life, and ethnological materials. It is overwhelming
both in terms of its quantity and its diversity.
Here, we present a select portion of the whole. In five sections entitled “Sculpture Garden,” “Japan /Utility / Beauty,” “Study Room & Factory,” “The World Inside Takashi Murakami’s Brain,” and “1950 – 2015,”
we consider issues such as the sources of the artist’s aesthetic ideas, the meaning of the act of collecting, artand value, and the relationship between politics, economics, and society.
[Guest Curator: Akiko Miki]

Sculpture Garden:
In the vast open space at the entrance to the museum known as the Grand Gallery and around thecorridors on the upper floor, viewers are greeted by spectacular sculptures and installations, which together
transcend the framework of a private collection and seemingly challenge restrictions of size and cost. In thesculptures by Anselm Kiefer, one of which uses the wreckage of an airplane, and Zhang Huan, which evokes
the remains of a huge creature made of cowhide, we can discern Murakami’s interest in a variety of complex
relationships, including military defeat, capitalism and socialism, imperialism, ideology, history, and the arts.
At the same time, Maurizio Cattelan’s works, such as the once stolen safe and the elevators that are too
small to use, are filled with an air of impertinent humor and raise various questions about the meaning ofartwork, the alchemy of value, and moreover, the human act of paying for something with an inherently fluidvalue. Murakami’s collection also includes works by such artists as Lee Ufan and Yoshitomo Nara, bothinternationally active and with whom he has a close relationship, as well as Chiho Aoshima and other artists
represented by Kaikai Kiki.

Japan / Utility / Beauty:
Of all the items in Murakami’s collection, the group of ceramic works is particularly notable both interms of quality and quantity. While these objects from everyday life exemplify the cultural climate of various
eras and regions along with people’s aesthetic sensibilities, they are also works of art with a historicalbackground that have been rediscovered and revalued across the ages. This section boasts a truly widearray of works, ranging from Jōmon pottery to ancient ceramics from regional kilns that emerged in Japan in
the 12th century, tea ceremony utensils such as the gray Shino tea bowl, which is thought to have been madein the Momoyama period, Kitaōji Rosanjin’s ceramics, pottery and porcelain from the ancient kilns of Koreaand China, miscellaneous everyday vessels, and European slipware.
Alongside these ceramic works are displays of paintings from the mid-Edo Period by artists such as
Soga Shōhaku and Hakuin Ekaku, who belong to a lineage of eccentrics in Japanese art, and historical
documents such as a letter hand-written by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Together these works provide us with insight
into Murakami’s interest in the origins of Japanese art and the roots of Japanese aesthetics.

Study Room & Factory:
David Shrigley’s installation is a classroom for life drawing. Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged
to freely sketch the human-model sculpture that stands in the center of the room and display their works on
the wall. On the other hand, Mika Rottenberg’s installation, which was shown at the Venice Biennale last year,
consists of a video contrasting Asian women sorting pearls in a factory while a white woman performing
meaningless tasks in an office, and a display of countless pearls. Next to this is a pearl that was found in aplate of food by a diner in an American restaurant and was later sold at auction for a high price. These works
urge us to consider subjects such as art education, the creation (or fabrication) of value, the mechanisms thatlead to the formation of value, and labor and compensation.

The World Inside Takashi Murakami’s Brain:
In this room, a wide variety of objects are displayed alongside one another in a non-discriminating
and chaotic manner, turning the entire gallery into an installation. Among the items on exhibit arecontemporary ceramics, wooden Buddha statues, lucky Fukusuke dolls, a ritual cup from Bolivia, Buddhist
sutra from Nepal, patterned tiles from the 13th to 17th centuries, costumes worn by religious ascetics, aleather skirt made by the Zulu people, wooden shoes from Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, old rags from the Showa
period, Mitsuya cider glasses, huge wooden sculptures of human forms, graffiti paintings, antique furniture,
beer mugs, and balls from the French game pétanque.
This spatial realm, filled with both wheat and chaff and lacking any apparent logic, functions as if
Murakami’s treasure box or toy box has been turned upside down, inviting viewers to share the fantastic
adventure of peering inside Takashi Murakami’s brain.

1950-2015:
In this section, Japanese and international artworks from 1950 to the present, which serve as themain pillar of Murakami’s collection, are for the most part mechanically arranged according to year ofproduction. This temporal framework for the postwar era overlaps with the artist’s life, as he was born in 1962.
Among the works are photographs by Doug and Mike Starn, who were stars when Murakami was a youngman; drawings by Horst Janssen, who reminded him the importance of self-portraits; works by Shinro Ohtake,whose exhibition made Murakami decide to enter the contemporary art world; small works by Andy Warhol;and some Neo-Expressionist works, which were all the rage when Murakami was in university.
This section also includes works by Mokuma Kikuhata, Kazumi Nakamura, and Nobuyoshi Araki,
who have each made a unique mark on Japanese art history; outsider art as represented by Henry Darger;
and photographs of key figures from the art world and others such as Steve Jobs. There are works by young
emerging artists who have turned trivial everyday expressions and the idea of distribution systems such as
FedEx into art, as well as some by both Japanese and international artists whose works Murakami has
shown in his own galleries. Distancing himself from the various art historical trends and mainstream
developments that have influenced him in countless ways (or as Murakami refers to them, “nostalgia”), thissection introduces us to Murakami’s wide-ranging personal interests. These include a reverence forinnovators and epoch-makers who carved out their own unique territories, ever-changing standards of beauty,
the search for artistic essence, and the context for Murakami’s own singular work, which diverges from art
history of the past.

Takashi Murakami
Born 1962 in Tokyo, Murakami completed his doctoral work at Tokyo University of the Arts
Graduate School of Fine Arts, becoming the first person at the university to earn a Ph.D. in Nihonga. In 2008,
he was selected as one of TIME magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People.” He is well known for hiscorporate branding projects with Louis Vuitton, VANS, shu uemura, and Roppongi Hills, as well as
collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Yuzu. More recently, he has beenworking on film and video productions, and releasing his first live-action feature film Jellyfish Eyes in 2013.
He is working to release an animated television series 6HP(Six Hearts Princess).

General Information
Title:
Dates:
Hours:
Closed:Venue:

Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection ―From Shōhaku and Rosanjin to Anselm Kiefer―
January 30 (Sat) - April 3 (Sun), 2016
10:00－18:00 (Last admission at 17:30)
Thursdays (except February 11)
Yokohama Museum of Art
3-4-1, Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama 220-0012
TEL: +81(0)45−221−0300 FAX: +81(0)45−221−0317
URL: http://yokohama.art.museum/eng

Produced & Directed by:

Takashi Murakami

Guest Curator:

Akiko MikiCo-curators:

Tomoh Kashiwagi, Shintaro Matsunaga (Yokohama Museum of Art)

Organizers:

Yokohama Museum of Art, Nikkei Inc.

Supported by:

The City of Yokohama

In Cooperation with:

Minatomirai Line, Yokohama Cable Vision Inc.,
Yokohama FM Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Metropolitan Expressway Co., Ltd.

Admission :Adults ¥1,500, University and high school students ¥900,Junior high school students ¥400, Free admission for children under 12,Seniors (65 and Older) ¥1,400 *ID required.

Only available at the ticket counter in the museum.

Exhibition Catalog
Title:

Superflat Collection

Date of Issue:

March 25, 2016

Published by:

Kaikai Kiki, Inc.

Size:

Nonstandard A4 Size

Price:¥3,456 (tax included)[Conversation]David Walsh (Museum of Old and New Art [MONA]) ×Takashi Murakami[Essays]

Akiko Miki (Guest Curator)
Tomoh Kashiwagi (Curator in Chief, Yokohama Museum of Art)

Related Information
Takashi Murakami: The 500 Arhats
The first large-scale Murakami solo exhibition in Japan in 14 years features The 500 Arhats, one of
the largest paintings ever produced in global art history, as well as a number of new works in which hecontinues to offer up new challenges to the history of contemporary art. This exhibition takes a close-up lookat the endeavors of Murakami as a mature artist working with astonishing scale, energy, and artistic
accomplishment.
Dates:

October 31 (Sat), 2015 - March 6 (Sun), 2016

Hours:

10:00－22:00 (Tuesdays: 10:00－17:00)*Admission until 30 minutes before closing.

Venue:

Mori Art Museum
53F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
TEL: +81 (0)3-5777-8600 (Hello Dial)
http://www.mori.art.museum/eng/
Mori Art Museum
Press Contact:
Ms. Machino, Ms. Taki, Ms. Tozawa
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum

The 500 Arhats (detail) 2012
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board 302 x 10,000cm
Private collection©2012 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All
Rights Reserved.

Press Contact
Ms. Miyano, Ms. Fujii, Ms.Kubota,

Public Relations, Yokohama Museum of Art

3-4-1, Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama. 220-0012 JAPANTEL: +81(0)45 221 0319

FAX:+81(0)45 221 0317

E-mail: pr-yma@yaf.or.jp