Takashi Murakami 'Superflat Sunshine A Decade In Bloom' Available

Artist: Takashi Murakami
Title: Superflat Sunshine A Decade In Bloom
Medium: Framed 8 Color Screen Print
Size: 22 x 22 Inches
Edition: 100
Price: $2,800

 

 

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962, Tokyo) is the neon godfather of Superflat, a movement he coined to describe Japan’s legacy of compressed, two dimensional imagery that stretches from Edo woodblocks to anime cels. Armed with a BFA, MFA and PhD in Nihonga (classical Japanese painting) from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, he rebelled against the medium’s academic gatekeeping by fusing its mineral pigments and goldleaf techniques with otaku subculture, manga speed-lines and kawaii cuteness. His breakout creature, Mr. DOB a Mickey-eared, sharp toothed mascot first appeared in 1993 as a self-portrait critiquing consumerist cloning, and has since mutated across paintings, inflatables and 3 metre fiberglass sculptures that sell for millions.

Operating like a pop-culture Warhol, Murakami founded Kaikai Kiki Co., a Tokyo-New York production house that employs dozens of assistants to churn out psychedelic flower balls, sword wielding anime boys and lasso-spraying lads such as the $15.2 million My Lonesome Cowboy. His 2003 collaboration with Marc Jacobs splashed candy colored monograms onto Louis Vuitton handbags, obliterating the line between boutique and museum, while his cover for Kanye West’s Graduation and direction of the Good Morning anime cemented his role as a cross-disciplinary tastemaker.

Exhibitions at the Palace of Versailles, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and a 2025 London show where AI helped reconstruct a 1615 folding screen prove his knack for merging past and future. Beneath the rainbow petals lies a darker undertow post-Hiroshima anxiety, sexualised kawaii and the flattening of trauma into merchandise making Murakami both celebratory and cautionary, a merchant of joy who never lets us forget the price tag on escapism.