Superflat

Keiichi Tanami - precursor?

Takashi Murakami (1962 - )

• Studied traditional Japanese painting (Nihonga) at Tokyo National University
• Nihonga developed in Meiji period to pose resistance to Western Art

• Became disillusioned with traditional art / enamored of otaku culture
• Space Battleship Yamato
• Time Bokan
• Galaxy Express 999
• Yoshinori Kanada effects

• Influenced by various Western contemporary artists
• Christo
• Mario Merz - 1
• Joseph Beuys - 1
• Julian Schnabel
• Damien Hirst - 1, 2
• Also influenced by Andy Warhol
• The idea of a "business artist"
• Mostly disillusioned with the lack of a sustainable art market in Japan
• Post-war appropriation of Western trends
• General view of Japanese art as low status in and out of Japan

• 1996 - began Hiropon Factory (later KaiKai Kiki) to help realize his art
• Employs over 100 people in Tokyo and Brooklyn, NY
• Many assistants are artists themselves

• Called the "Japanese Andy Warhol," he is lauded and derided for taking low culture art and turning it into high culture art
• Animation is next on their list of to-do's

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Art Safari Doc on Superfalt and Murakami

Superflat Manifesto

• ""The more works you produce, the more you have to ponder such premises such as the "self" that was born and raised in "Japan" and the nature of the "art" you are producing, if you are going to make any progress at all."
• create surface images that erase interstices and thus made the observer aware of the images' extreme planarity.
• Eccentric Artists

                     Ito Jakuchu: 1, 2

                     Kano Sansetsu: 1, 2

                     Soga Shohaku: 1, 2

• Geijutsu Artists
• Taro Okamoto: Museum    Ad   
• Masuo Ikeda
• Genpei Akasegawa
• Ero Guro Nonsensu
• Hi Red Center

• 1970 World's Fair in Osaka - swallowed up the avant-garde with the mainstream.  After 1970, the terms art and fine art began to lose their distinction
• "Avant Garde artists who think seriously about the relationship between Japanese society and "art" have moved their artistic pursuits into the popular media, allowing them to enter Japanese society.
• Matazo Kayama
• Yasushi Sugiyama
• Ikuo Hirayama
• He's kind of a formalist, isn't he?

 Interview

Yoshitomo Nara

• Born in 1959 in Hirosaki, Japan
• Studied for 5 years in Germany
• "Look at them, they [the weapons] are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those?" he says. "I don’t think so. Rather, I kind of see the children among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives…"

 Aya Takano

• born in 1976 in Saitama
• Works in ink and acrylics
• subjects are most often female and are depicted as both playful and erotic
• Notes from one of her exhibits

From the Kawaii Expo

Chiho Aoshima

• Born in 1974 in Tokyo
• Majored in Economics
• No formal art training
• Prints her work onto large scale printers

From her underground mural in Gloucester Station

Rei Sato

Rei Sato