Featured Installation of Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami is one of the most visible and important Japanese artists working today. Murakami’s influence on Japan rivals Andy Warhol’s in the United States. Unifying many strands of culture that are frequently considered in opposition—traditional Japanese painting with Western influences, the realm of fine art with otaku lifestyle (culture obsessed with toys, anime, and video games), and commercial retail spaces with museums and other public venues—Murakami’s work is recognized for its ambition, polish, and fine execution. Murakami’s artistic practice is expansive, spilling into fashion, film, and other commercial areas, but his symbols and interests come from deeper impulses.

Central to Murakami’s work is Mr. DOB, created in 1994 as a playful take on Japanese pop culture icons like Doraemon and Sonic the Hedgehog. Over time, Mr. DOB evolved into multiple characters, including Kaikai and Kiki, who embody joy and mischief, and the monstrous Tan Tan Bo, reflecting personal pain and societal excess. Murakami’s later series explores cultural symbols, such as Chinese guardian lions, blending Japanese and Chinese traditions to reflect cultural exchange and hybridity.

The most recent work to be on view is Murakami’s Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo: Japonisme Reconsidered—Moon Pine, Ueno, 2024–25. In 2024, the artist was invited by the Brooklyn Museum of Art to make work in response to Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo, 1856-1858. Hiroshige’s woodblock prints are among the most recognizable works of Japanese art for people living outside of Japan and played a vital role in the history of western modernist painting, directly inspiring artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet. 

For these reasons, Murakami chose to directly copy Hiroshige’s work in his own style to understand and channel the excitement that entranced artists like Van Gogh and Monet. In Japan, it is common to copy the works of one’s teacher as one becomes as an artist. To copy is to honor, to understand, and to eventually learn to develop one’s own voice in relation to the art that came before. Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo: Japonisme Reconsidered—Moon Pine, Ueno, 2024–25, embodies this tradition. Notably, the pine tree depicted in the painting was famous in Edo at the time of Hiroshige but was later lost during a typhoon. Through impressive horticultural efforts, the city of Tokyo grew a replica of the tree, which resides in Japan to this day.