Saturday, August 9, 2014

02 Gio Aguilar - Takashi Murakami


Takashi Murakami is well known Japanese contemporary artist.  He is most known for his integration of art, commercialism, Japanese aesthetics, and cultural criticism into his work. His works consist of painting and sculptor, and he is known to make Japanese anime style creatures.  One character in particular that he created, and is well known for is the character Mr. DOB.  Mr. DOB is a blue mouse like character that has garnered popularity in Japan, and because of that Murakami changed his artworks into merchandise.  Murakami began to make art that would sell, making him a commercial artist.  Mr. DOB became an icon in Japan, and has become his own signature character.  I have been a fan of anime art since I can remember, and most of my inspirations comes from anime art especially from Murakami’s work. 



One thing that many people do not about Murakami is that he was actually responsible for the artwork behind Kanye West’s Graduation album.  If you look at the album cover artwork, you can see that the anime style quickly resembles to Murakami’s style.  The creature on the bottom right hand corner has been used before in his earlier works.  It would make sense for Murakami being a commercial artist to agree on being part of the project.  I also believe that Murakami played a huge role on making this album a huge success through his art.  He is practically responsible for the creation of the Dropout Bear character, which Kanye has since been using as his signature character


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