Takashi Murakami - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Thursday, February 28, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Gagosian Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited


    New York, Gagosian Gallery, Tranquility of the Heart Torment of the Flesh-Open Wide the Eye of the Heart, and Nothing is Invisible, 1 May – 9 June, 2007

  • Catalogue Essay


    When I was preparing for the entrance exams for the University of Fine Arts, I spent two years drawing flowers. I drew some every day. And the entrance exam in the Nihon-ga section also involved flower drawing. Afterwards, to earn a living, I spent nine years working in a preparatory school, where I taught the students to draw flowers. Once every two days, I would buy flowers for my lesson and make compositions for the students to work on. At the beginning, to be frank, I didn’t like flowers, but as I continued teaching in the school, my feelings changed: their smell, their shape – it all made me feel almost physically sick, and at the same time I found them very 'cute'. Each one seemed to have its own feelings, its own personality. (Takashi Murakami, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, 2002, p. 84)

  • Artist Biography

    Takashi Murakami

    Japanese • 1962

    Takashi Murakami is best known for his contemporary combination of fine art and pop culture. He uses recognizable iconography like Mickey Mouse and cartoonish flowers and infuses it with Japanese culture. The result is a boldly colorful body of work that takes the shape of paintings, sculptures and animations.

    In the 1990s, Murakami founded the Superflat movement in an attempt to expose the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture." The artist plays on the familiar aesthetic of mangas, Japanese-language comics, to render works that appear democratic and accessible, all the while denouncing the universality and unspecificity of consumer goods. True to form, Murakami has done collaborations with numerous brands and celebrities including Kanye West, Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams and Google.

    View More Works

304

Flower of Joy- Blueberry Mint

2007

Acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas.

Diameter: 39.6 cm. (15 5/8 in).

Signed and dated ‘Takashi Murakami ‘07’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for £60,500

Contemporary Art Day Sale

29 Feb 2008, 2pm
London