Takashi Murakami has always been an essential voice in contemporary art, not only for his personal artwork, but his curatorial voice and cultural observations. His Superflat theory, that idea of flattening out of high and low art and culture onto one plane of importance came long before Instagram but seems to have been strengthened by the way people consume and find art in their lives in the 21st century. Through his own Kaikai Kiki Gallery and Hidari Zingaro spaces in Tokyo, Murakami has shown everyone from graffiti and ceramics to blue chip and manga. He's not only all over the pulse of contemporary, art and fashion, but he is finding an even newer language to define how we look at art once again in 2019.
Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo just opened the 2019 Kaikai Kiki Summer Show, a group show of a mixture of artists that have collaborated or been in the Murakami orbit in recent years: Chiho Aoshima, Yuji Ueda, Otani Workshop, ob, KYNE, Emi Kuraya, groovisions, James Jean, Aya Takano, TENGAone, FUTURA, Ben Edmunds, MADSAKI, Murakami himself, Mr. and Virgil Abloh. As Takashi wrote, "Featuring MADSAKI, Otani Workshop, Yuji Ueda, TENGAone, and more, the artists who have joined us in past few years are very energetic and are producing artworks one after another– so much so that they cannot fit them into their solo exhibitions."
Listen to our Radio Juxtapoz podcast conversation with Madsaki.
In the next few weeks, Juxtapoz will be in Tokyo and will capture more looks at the various shows opening up around Tokyo this summer.