Georges Braques
Everywhere you turned - in one publication or another - there was an in-depth analysis of the Takashi Murakami retrospective at MOCA'S Geffen Contemporary.
A couple of critics have raved about recent exhibitions as well.
An artist friend of friend (we're both abstract-expressionist painters) chuckles when I remark:
"They must like black velvet paintings, too."
Well, there's no accounting for taste, is there?
One journalist argued that because collectors are allegedly snapping up Murakami's art - labelled the "superflat" influence - that many critics are forced to sit up and take notice.
Not me!
In my mind's eye, the class of people flocking to exalt his renderings are probably the nouveau riche who lament non-plussed,
"I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like."
According to Edmond de Goncourt,
"A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world."
Murakami is known in art circles for blending elements of pop culture with the formal styles of Japanese Art.
"Superflat" is the term that's been coined by high-brow arts-fartsy types who wax eloquently about his - um - creative bowel movements.
Yes, when asked how he conjured up the idea for one exotic sculpture, he noted without apology, that the concept flashed up when he was toiling away on the pottie one day.
I have heard of art being called **it, but this amounts to the payload.
In musing on the retrospective, the artist - a classically-trained student with a doctoral in Art history - noted his initial idea was to see postwar anime and magna as the progeny of the 17th and 18th Century Edo era's two-dimensional artistic techniques.
He merged the flat patterns with modern decoration to create a specifically Japanese post-modern aesthetic.
A smiley face is art?
And what of the horrendous sculpture that sits like Humpty Dumpty on the lip of a flower vase with an oversized head too big for the tiny torso?
A rebellion against the Golden Mean?
Curiously, I attended a screening of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" the other evening.
In one scene, George Segal's character is surveying a landscape and starts to opine, "It has a certain - "
The professor (Burton's character) interrupts him and cynically remarks - "Noisy, relaxed quality?"
He has reduced the lofty intellectualization of Art to "bull****.
That's what the scholarly meanderings of this artist's musings smack of.
In contrast, when Warhol depicted a soup can, he inspired provocative thought - and in the process - stirred up a society with powerful ideas that still hold sway today.
About Murakami's art (?), one writer babbled,
"Murakami taps into contemporary Japan's otaku culture of "geeks" hard-core fans of anime and manga who's obsession with detail, affection for infantile objects and sexual fetishes have since moved from the fringe of Japanse Society in the 1970's to become a mass commercial movement."
That's the operative word: commercial.
The renderings are not creative, artistic, or visionary; to be sure, the odd-ball expressions do not warrant homage worthy of inclusion in any major gallery worth its salt - or any pretigious collection - for that matter.
Personally, I wouldn't hang the eyesores in my closet, in spite of the bizarre novelies currently stored there.
In sum, the scribbles are mere doodles - tinted, colored in - insignificant childish pieces of strange euphoria on canvas evoked in jarring tones.
Simply put - the imaginings are a mass of fawning eccentric swirls and blotches that annoy - they're so wretched!
Give me a Brague, Paul Klee - even a quality Lichtenstein - any day!
At least those dynamic works are appealing to the eye and the sensibilities overall; balanced in shape and form - they resonate with passion, integrity, and the essence of an artistic spirit - and touch the soul.
I say, cast out the tasteless crap, knocked off for cash.
The in-house Louis Vitton Boutique can pack up its bags and heave-ho, too.
Yeah, they're flogging limited edition signature technicolor handbags, Murakami is noted for.
In the publicity stills, Takashi Murakami smiles broadly.
Liberace - would no doubt roar - he's "laughing all the way to the bank".
No self-respecting artist would flog their art like this.
One superflat fan asserted that Murakami's work promoted the notion that there are no boundaries between high and low art.
In my estimation, never the 'twain should meet!
Paul Klee
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