The Art Room: Japanese culture

Takeshi Murakami’s paintings and sculptures are colourful, lovable and accessible in their references to popular culture. Murakami not only challenges the line between high art and popular culture, in both a similar and dissimilar vein to Andy Warhol, but also questions the lines drawn between East and West, past and present.

To confine oneself to appreciating the easily accessible aspects of his works such as the cute and lovable appearance of Panda would be to skim the surface of a complex ocean of meaning.

So let’s dive into the deep end and explore Murakami’s theory of the Superflat and how it is applied to his art.

In the context of art, the Superflat conjures up thoughts of Andy Warhol and his famous line ‘If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface…There’s nothing behind it.’

In contrast to this Warholian idea of ‘flatness,’ Murakami has explained at great length the theory and practice of the Superflat.

The practice of the Superflat encompasses a variety of meanings used in different combinations by Murakami.

In broad terms it refers to the way graphic design, pop culture and fine arts are flattened in Japan. It also refers to the two-dimensional nature of Japanese graphic art and animation, and the shallowness of consumer culture.

To be more specific, the Superflat refers to any of the following: traditional Japanese painting’s anticipation of the flatness inherent in Western modernism; art historian Nobu Tsuji’s book The Lineage of Eccentricity; the horizontally organised nature of Japanese culture; the flat-screen world of digital imaging; and the flattening of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the nuclear strikes of 1945.
The Superflat identifies those aspects of Japanese art that are different from Western art. What is inherently Japanese, according to Murakami, is the feeling of flatness.

The influence of traditional Japanese art on modern artists has been evident since the very beginning. French Impressionist Claude Monet developed a strong interest in Japanese prints, the influence of which is apparent in his works.

Perhaps one of the most explicit examples of this influence can be seen in Monet’s Terrace at St. Adresse.

The qualities of Japanese prints which lend themselves to modernist art and are evident in Terrace at St. Adresse, include lack of perspective and shadows, the reduction of form and the use of flat, broad areas of colour.

The simplistic, wavy lines used in Japanese prints to depict the ocean have also been adopted by Monet in Terrace at St. Adresse to capture the impression of water’s movement.

The feeling of flatness inherent in Japanese art is also reflected in the organisation of their culture in general, for example in the horizontality of Japanese architectural designs.

Another aspect of the Superflat which needs some explanation is Nobu Tsuji’s 1970 book The Lineage of Eccentricity. Tsuji is the first to point out the “eccentric” streak of playful, fantastic and decorative qualities shared by some of Japan’s most famous historical painters, including Sansetsu Kano, Ito Jakuchu and Kuniyoshi Utagawa.

Tsuji also made a link between these artists and manga. By noticing both Manga’s and the “eccentric” artists’ creation of surface images that make the viewer aware of the planarity of the image, Murakami grasped Tsuji’s point and incorporated it into his theory of the Superflat.

In Time Bokan Pink (Mushroom Bomb Pink) the influence of Japanese anime on
Murakami is clear. The image of the skull-shaped mushroom cloud is from the popular
series Time Bokan.

Each episode of Time Bokan ended with the demise of a villain, often symbolised by a
skull-shaped mushroom cloud.

This imagery in combination with Murakami’s happy, bright, trademark flowers reflects Japanese post-war culture and the way it often light heartedly references horrific moments of its history in forms such as anime.

The theory of the Superflat reflects Murakami’s art in quite a profound way. From the name ‘Superflat’ we would expect a simplistic meaning wouldn’t we? Yet the term refers to a multiplicity of meanings combined in a variety of ways.

The same effect is at work in Murakami’s paintings and sculptures. On the surface many of his works seem like characters from an anime series or a figurine to be collected, it is true this is one aspect of what they are, but underneath the exterior lies a web of meanings.

In these works lay Murakami’s world of the Superflat.

The Art Room

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Takashi Murakami: the world of the Superflat