The superstar artist, famed for his Louis Vuitton bags and Kanye West album sleeves, is back with epic paintings riffing on the history of Japanese art. He talks cuteness, gold leaf and hara-kiri on TV
It’s Kyoto, but not as you know it. Forget cherry blossom and golden temples: study one of Takashi Murakami’s vast new paintings and you’ll notice shimmering clouds laid over the embossed outlines of cartoon skulls. It’s a reference, he says, to the city’s ancient Toribeno burial ground – and a key motif for the artist in his evocation of Japan’s postwar ghosts.
“I really wanted to depict a version of Kyoto that is not beautiful or pleasing to tourists,” says Murakami via a translator from his vast studio-cum-factory complex outside Tokyo. “I wanted to show that Kyoto’s arts and culture were nurtured within the context of really gruesome historical and political conflicts.”
