Murakami Takashi was born in Tokyo in 1962. He has many faces, including artist, curator, collector, film director, and founder of Kaikai Kiki Ltd. He completed his doctoral studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Fine Arts in 1993. His doctoral thesis was "On the Meaning of the Meaninglessness of Meaning in Art," making him the first person to receive a doctorate from the university's Japanese painting department. He is the creator of the "Superflat" theory, which connects the flatness of Japanese art with contemporary culture such as animation, and is a representative artist of this theory.
In 1996, he established the studio "Hiropon Factory" for producing his works (incorporated as Kaikai Kiki LLC in 2001). In 2000, he held a group exhibition "SUPERFLAT" at Shibuya Parco Gallery, which he curated himself (traveling to Shibuya Parco, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, etc.). Masashi Sanai, HIROMIX, Yoshitomo Nara, Mr., Takashi Murakami, Baume (Kaiyodo), and others participated (traveling to the Pacific Design Center, Annex of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles the following year). In 2005, he held "Little Boy - The Explosion of Japanese Subculture Art" at the Japan Society in New York, which won the Best Thematic Exhibition Award from AICA USA (American Book Critics Association) in 2006. In 2010, he held "MURAKAMI VERSAILLES," becoming the third contemporary artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles. In 2012, he held a solo exhibition, "Murakami-Ego," in Doha, Qatar, where he unveiled his monumental work, "The 500 Arhats" (2012), spanning 100 meters in width. "The 500 Arhats" was also exhibited in the solo exhibition "Murakami Takashi: The 500 Arhats" held at the Mori Art Museum in 2015-2016, and this exhibition led to him receiving the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize in 2015 (66th time).
He has held five large-scale solo exhibitions overseas, including "Murakami by Murakami" (Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo) in 2017. Notable works include My Lonesome CowBoy (1998), a life-size figure of a naked young man releasing a semen-like white liquid, and Miss Ko2 (2003), a life-size figure of a beautiful girl dressed as a waitress, as well as the aforementioned Five Hundred Arhats (2012), which takes inspiration from Japanese art in more recent years.
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Recurring motifs include "Mr. DOB" and "flowers." In addition to exhibitions, he started the art event "GEISAI" for young artists in 2002 (held 20 times to date). In 2003, he collaborated with Louis Vuitton to release "Monogram Multicolor." In 2013, he made his debut as a film director with the feature film "Jellyfish Eyes."
