Superstar Artist Takashi Murakami Opens Up About his Blockbuster Comeback

The show of new paintings does indeed feel fresh. Playfully titled “Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami”, it still exists within the artist’s well-known universe of “Superflat” imagery—signature rainbow Smiling Flowers; skulls; and Murakami’s cartoon alter-ego, Mr. DOB—but it’s embedded within a broader narrative around traditional Japanese artistry. There are paintings of kimono-clad figures and flowers, mythical creatures and Buddhist deities, and epic scenes of Japanese life. They both reference traditional scrolls and folding screens and incorporate elements of anime and manga in a vibrant and intricate Pop mash-up.

“In the past, part of what I was doing [with my work] was to introduce the minor culture [of anime] to the world,” says Murakami. But now that anime has become globally prevalent, aired on Netflix and Amazon Prime, “I feel like that part of my role is a thing of the past, and right now I can really focus on my own interest in the more historical paintings.”

Some of the paintings in “Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami” were first shown earlier this year at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. For that exhibition, Murakami, who has a PhD in traditional Japanese nihonga painting, was asked to respond to specific artworks, including a famous 17th-century depiction of Kyoto by Iwasa Matabei: Rakuchū Rakugai Zu Byōbu (Funaki Version). Across two six-panel folding screens, the original shows the city and some 2,700 of its inhabitants floating among golden clouds. Murakami’s take, Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Bōybu: Iwasa Matabei RIP (2023–24) is no less ambitious. Measuring approximately 10 feet high and 42 feet across, the monumental composition has been painstakingly recast with classic Murakami motifs in the mix: while figures echoes his joyful Flower Parent and Child sculpture, skulls are subtly pressed into the gold leaf, inspired by a visit to the Toribeno burial ground.

Paintings of the “Four Symbols”—mythical guardians of Kyoto: the Black Tortoise, the Blue Dragon, the Vermilion Bird and the White Tiger—were also produced for the Kyoto show. In the catalogue, Murakami says: “This set of works and Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Bōybu: Iwasa Matabei RIP posed the biggest challenges for our studio in this exhibition. For a whole month, I suffered with symptoms of neurosis or depression that would make me physically imobile.”

Less torturous has been Murakami’s relationship with art historian Nobuo Tsuji. Following their picture contest, Nippon e-awase, in which Murakami responded to Tsuji’s art-historical prompts, Murakami is “an artist transformed”, suggests Ed Schad, curator at the Broad museum in L.A., in an essay accompanying the Gagosian show. Murakami concurs: “I do feel that I have gone through some form of transformation.”

The new work feels distinctly different from his notorious, anime-inspired and ejaculating sculpture “My Lonesome Cowboy” (1998). In London, there are moments of unapologetic beauty: swathes of chrysanthemums spears of hollyhocks after Ogata Kōrin, a master of the Sōtatsu-Kōetsu school of decorative painting, all wreathed in ethereal gold. There’s a sense of spirituality, too; his flamboyant Flaming Vermillion Bird (2024), for instance, is surrounded by a celestial circle of arhats–saintly Buddhist figures who have achieved enlightenment.

When I ask him about the spiritual side of his practice, he brings up the FX TV drama Shōgun set in 1600 Japan. “A lot of inspiration for this exhibition came from this series, especially the the scenes of harakiri, the ritual suicide, and the death poem that they read right before,” he says. “The people of that time, both men and women, put their lives on the line to achieve something. I felt that they were determining the timeline of their own life; that was the larger context that I discerned from this drama.”

Known as Japan’s Andy Warhol, the artist who has collaborated with Kanye West and exhibited at the Palace of Versailles, who employs a studio team of 70 just to make his paintings, seems to be thinking about his own timeline. As the founder and CEO of Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd, his broader company that spans galleries, shops, a cafe, an animation studio, an art fair and even a trading card game, and which has hundreds of employees across offices in Tokyo, Kyoto and New York, has he thought about his legacy? “I’m definitely thinking about it but nothing is really going well,” he admits. “It’s all chaotic and I’m confused.”

It’s also incredibly busy. “I’m doing the Louis Vuitton thing, I’m doing the commissioned painting thing; it’s a lot of work,” he said at the Japan Cultural Expo 2.0 event. “We need help from technology.” Some of the imagery in his new work has been generated by AI. It’s partly a time-saving tool, but it’s also about staying “fresh”—a word he uses a lot. “To create new visual images you really have to have AI on your side because school kids don’t use pencils and brushes; they use AI,” he shares. “If we don’t embrace it we will be obsolete.”

His own children also bring a fresh perspective. “For example, it was at my daughter’s dance recital that I learned about Japanese hip hop artist JP THE WAVY, who I’m now collaborating with,” he explains. “And my son doesn’t even go to school; he’s just been playing Fortnite all the time. I really had to start thinking seriously about why he is so obsessed with the game. In the process of trying to really understand and digest the culture that they’re experiencing, I find a lot of new context and understanding.”

In the midst of all this, of course, is Murakami himself, whose image—bespectacled, baggy-trousered and plushie-hatted—is as much a part of his practice as the paintings on the wall. Eagle-eyed gallery-goers will find him in the Gagosian show, too. In the Kyoto festival procession of Gion Sairei-zu Takashi Murakami Ver. (2024), alongside the odd three-eyed Kiki creation and some funny cats courtesy of 19th-century printmaker Utagawa Kuniyoshi, his likeness is tiny but unmistakable, and can’t help but raise a smile.

Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami is at Gagosian, 20 Grosvenor Hill, London, until  March 8, 2025, alongside a takeover of the Burlington Arcade gallery and shop; gagosian.com