Murakami has a new body of work coming out this fall. The opening is next Saturday September 12th from 4 to 9pm at Galerie Perrotin in Paris. The exhibition will have 17 paintings as well as five sculptures and two films. Wild stuff– I wish I could make the opening.

This massive acrylic on canvas painting is called “Planet of Ecology: The Earth 2008-2009

More info on the show after the jump.

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It’s incredible to see a blog grow into something that comes to change pop culture. The blog reports on it, but in the process, inevitably becomes a part of that pop culture as well. One of our smart classmates who’s been running in parallel alongside us all these years, adamantly pushing its cause, is Slamxhype.com, which started off as a simple street apparel-update blog but has recently made its foray into the print world—an interesting move considering media companies usually do it the other way around. The New Order is a heavy tome of a magazine that comes out quarterly and merges the right now of fashion, art, film and relevant topics affecting our generation. The second issue has just debuted and features a double cover with KAWS and Takashi Murakami, two significant icons of pop culture who consistently challenge ideas and keep them relevant. Each issue runs $25, but if you make it to the launch party tomorrow in L.A. at Carmichael Gallery, you’ll score a free copy that includes a special KAWS poster. Those who can’t make it can get a preview of the issue in a video on Slamxhype.com.

How many of you know what to do with the image to the left? Hopefully most of you. Aside from identifying it as Murakami work, it’s a QR code for your mobile phone. QR (quick response) codes are like the Japanese version of bar codes, because they started in Japan. The code is scanned into your mobile phone via the camera and outputs a link. Think of it as a way to add hyperlinks in the real world. Normally, these QR codes look like deformed boxy versions of bar codes. But as soon as Murakami touches one we are all gaga. It’s amazing what a little Louis Vuitton pattern and color can do to a QR. Nice work SET!

While most artists struggle to be big in the States, others strive for the glory of being big in Japan after they’ve flopped in America.  

Of course, that isn’t really the case with (our dear friend) the Canadian-born multi-disciplinary artist eepmon (Eric Sze-Lang Chan), an already-successful creator who will be touring Japan all this May. During that time, eepmon will put on two solo exhibits and be a part of many other art events in Tokyo. Though a large part of his work features poppy, bright colors and subjects like flowers and animals (pieces in this style will be shown at the Design Festa Gallery in his “i am my introspection” exhibit), we suspect Akira influenced him more than Takashi Murakami. Shapes fall upon one another in monstrous, jumbled ways, so that each time you glance at a piece, you can continue to find new and exciting images buried inside.

His other paintings, revealed within the “Intersections” exhibit at the Gallery O2, are also brimming with color, but are abstract and Pollock-like in their fury. Nevertheless, whether you’re viewing calmer works like the organic “Chaos Bloom 8″ or the abstract attacks on canvas in “Intersections,” his creations are visually arresting. We love them, more after the jump.
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Takashi Murakami, the Japanese artist who makes intriguing work out of cartoon mushrooms and whose style we most covet, currently has a retrospective going on at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The best part is SuperTouch is giving us a personal tour of the exhibition narrated by the artist himself. Even if your Japanese AND your Spanish are a little rough, you’ll get a kick out of seeing the evolution of a master’s art. For the full tour, click here.

Via Hypebeast

We have a blog crush on Takashi Murakami. So any chance we get to see some new paintings by him, we are totally all over it. Opening today at the London branch of Gagosian Gallery is something of a warm up show before a full on exhibition of new work at the Gagosian in Spain later this year. The show includes three large scale paintings … and … well, that’s kinda it. Like I said, it’s a warm up event. The paintings come from his Time Bokan series (pictured) and KaiKai and Kiki characters. So if you need to get your fix of millions of little flower faces you’ve got till April 9th.

If only more online stores had a typeface purchase option. Japanese design firm LoWorks sells books, DVDs, and toys when it isn’t busy being awarded Favourite Website Awards‘ Site of the Day and collaborating with Nike and Yahoo. Takashi Murakami hasn’t got anything on the imaginative iPod video and Nano skins that art director and LoWorks CEO Haruki Higashi has created. The bright and often elephant-themed work looks best on screen, but T-shirts suffice in a pinch.

The first time I met Ray Young Chu he talked a lot of shit about my eyebrows.

This threw me initially, but once the topic of conversation turned to ice cream, then back to eyebrows (a friend's this time), then to PBR, I figured that Chu wasn't really talking shit, he was just full of shit — the really, really weird kind that helps people make amazing art.

It's been just over a year since Ray slammed my facial features, but in that short time he's made some serious headway. Read on as Ray slows down long enough for us to catch up.

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Hiroshi Fujiwara, Junya Watanabe, Takashi Murakami. These are all household names by now, and if you are not familiar with them, you should be. I think the late Amy Spindler said it best in her 2002 NY Times article: Japan (Tokyo) is the capitol of fashion. Since then, the aforementioned men and others, have helped expand Japan’s roster beyond just technology and fashion and have brought to the forefront of culture, design, music, and art. There is something about Japanese products that appeals to so many, and transcends the played out Anime/Manga fetish that (admittedly) led the way for this “invasion.” For an interactive crash course, Felissimo Design House is hosting the Japan C event. The 11 week event is an all-encompassing celebration of everything that “cool, cute, creative, and clever within Japanese culture.” In addition to the exhibits, there are weekly events with designers and product demonstrations. The event, which started on August 16th and goes through November 1st, is free to the public and will feature over 70 Japanese firms. If you get a chance to check it out, leave a comment and let us know what you think. I am particularly fond of Shin Tanaka’s (papercraft) work and think the plant in a keychain idea is pretty awesome as well.

We haven’t been quiet about our belief in Takashi Murakami as one of the future art legends and neither has Kanye West. Murakami did the cover art for Kanye’s latest album Graduation and now you can see his animated music video for the song “Graduation.” The video stars Murakami’s character he created for Kanye’s album, a little teddy bear with colorful eyes, as he wakes up late for his graduation from hip hop university. He rushes through a future city full of colorful subways and flying cars to make a dramatic entrance just in time. To all of you who started back to school this week, take note this is exactly what you should do for your graduation.

If you’re well connected, you would’ve received an invite yesterday to RSVP for a private preview on Friday for Dalek’s only exhibit this year, Overweight, at Washington D.C.’s Irvine Contemporary. It’s gotta be one of the biggest tickets in town (and sorry, we don’t have any to give out, but you can click here for a reasonable alternative). We’re guessing this based on what chaos it was trying to land tickets to the Takashi Murakami — Dalek’s boss in 2001, when he worked as his assistant — show in L.A. last year. The solo show sees the pop artist presenting new paintings that are as meticulous and psychedelic as ever. By occasion, Irvine Contemporary’s releasing a signed print produced in small quantity. The exhibit officially opens on Saturday, May 17, with a party open to everyone, but be nice when swarming your idol there.

We’ve been unabashedly devoted groupies of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for quite some time now, so it should come as no surprise that we’ll be amongst the throngs of art fans rushing over to his awe-inspiring retrospective beginning tomorrow, April 5th at New York’s Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit, organized by LA’s Moca, is the most complete retrospective to date on the widely admired artist. Unlike the recent LA exhibition that put a great deal of onus on his sculptures, the Brooklyn Show leans more heavily on Murakami’s paintings, many of which are peppered with seemingly innocuous images of fantastical fungi and flowers paintings but represent rather perverse and ponderous themes. The exhibition is a sensory overload of sorts featuring entirely too many wrinkles to discuss in this short space, but amongst them is Louis Vuitton boutique of sorts with limited edition bags designed by Murakami on display as well as a room where you can view his Kanye West video. It’s a good thing the exhibit will be around until July 13th, because you may have to go several times to see everything.

There’s no doubt about it: we’re unabashedly devoted groupies of Takashi Murakami, who we featured here a few weeks ago and continues to hold his place as one of the main powerhouses behind the Japanese pop art movement. With a highly anticipated (seriously, my palms start sweating when I think about it) show in October at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, his cult status shows no signs of dwindling, even as 2007 begins to close. The latest news is on his hot collaboration with Supreme, a kingpin of streetwear. He’s designed three decks, each with a Crayola color on the top with an animal flanked by his signature curvy and eyelash’d designs on the bottom, made in limited supply and already sold out everywhere, from what I can intelligently deduce from their going rates on eBay. I’m weeping as I write that last sentence, so I hope a sympathetic and enterprising Santa Claus will come through for me this Christmas. For now, most of us will just have to do with the photo. Wah!

My most favorite artist in the whole wide world, Takashi Murakami (see: Superflat, Louis Vuitton), is co-curating an exhibit with Giant Robot publisher Eric Nakamura, selecting the cream of the crop from Murakami’s respected GEISAI art expos in Japan and bringing them across the Pacific blue to LA. GEISAI’s an important event he organizes through his Kaikai Kiki artist management company and provides fresh, rising Japanese artist talent with a direct link to the public. The GEISAI Artists show will run from September 15 to October 10 at Giant Robot’s Los Angeles GR2 gallery, which we all know has steadfastly proved itself as an important space since its inception as any of the other hoity-toity galleries in the city. Among the artists showcasing are Yasushi Ebihara, whose work revolves around an almost stalker-like obsession of Macauley Caulkin; Jaga Ichiro and her devious paintings of liquids that come from our bodies; Miki Taira and her fabric people; and Sashi Masakatsu, whose painting is the leading image of the show (left). An opening reception kicks off the show on Saturday night.

The Japan Society in NYC has an going on right now called “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture”–curated by Takashi Murakami (you have probably seen his work for Louis Vuitton, drawing on handbags,etc). The exhibit sounds absoloutly amazing, exploring the culture of postward Japan through its art and popular visual media, from the perspective of Murakami himself–one of Japan’s most celebrated artists. “Focusing on the phenomenally influential subcultures of otaku (roughly translated as “pop cult fanaticism”) and its relationships to Japan’s artistic vanguard, Takashi Murakami explores the historical influences that shape Japanese contemporary art and its distinct graphic idioms. The exhibition’s title, Little Boy, refers to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, clearly locating the birth of these new cultural forms in the trauma and generational aftershock.” It runs through July 24th, so be sure to check it out if you’re in the area.