{"id":3173,"date":"2018-09-13T22:49:33","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T02:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?p=3173"},"modified":"2018-09-13T22:51:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T02:51:31","slug":"takashi-murakami-lineage-of-eccentrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/2018\/09\/13\/takashi-murakami-lineage-of-eccentrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Figure 1. Installation View. Image Courtesy of Joe Saravo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA <\/b>
\n<\/b>October 18, 2017 \u2013 April 1, 2018<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span>The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston\u2019s exhibition <\/span>Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics, <\/span><\/i>organized in collaboration with Japanese art historian Professor Nobuo Tsuji, combines the contemporary art of Takashi Murakami with that of the MFA\u2019s permanent Japanese art collection. The exhibition attempts to place Murakami\u2019s work within a long historical lineage of Japanese artists who strayed away from tradition. While the selection of over thirty of the MFA\u2019s exemplary pieces of Japanese masterpieces is stunning, many of them are overshadowed by Murakami\u2019s extravagantly large (and social media worthy) images.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exhibition provides a plethora of examples of some of the finest works of Japanese art, and makes the argument that Murakami, if not a part of this \u201cLineage of Eccentrics,\u201d has taken inspiration from them. <\/span>Placed within the same narrative space to create this lineage, the permanent collection works are grouped together in six categories: Superflat, Animation, Kazari, Asobi, Religiosity, and Eccentricity. W<\/span>hile these images are prominently displayed, some, such as the folding screens in the <\/span>Kazari <\/span><\/i>room, become overshadowed by the work of Murakami (fig. 1). Though these works are meant to show Murakami\u2019s inclusion in this lineage, the exhibition on the whole privileges Murakami\u2019s work allowing the historic pieces to get lost along the way. Noting this favoring, the exhibition remains humorous and enjoyable making the art on display accessible and intriguing to all.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 2. Installation view, Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics, Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A highlight of the exhibition is the <\/span>Kazari <\/span><\/i>room which displays Murakami\u2019s smiley face daisy mural <\/span>Kawaii\u2014Vacances: Summer Vacation in the Kingdom of the Golden <\/span><\/i>with matching printed floor and light fixtures. Two brilliant folding screens from the MFA\u2019s permanent collection frame the mural. These screens, <\/span>Poppies<\/span><\/i>(17th century, School of Tawaraya S\u014dtatsu) <\/span>display floral scenes typical of seventeenth-century decorative art (fig. 2). On the wall leading to the room it is suggested that visitors take selfies and pictures with the work to prove they were here and to post on social media using the hashtag <\/span>#mfaMurakami<\/span>. Due to this and the monumental size of Murakami\u2019s works, visitors largely ignore the screens and other surrounding works as they make their way towards a gift shop largely populated with expensive Murakami merchandise. The atmosphere of the exhibition then becomes less about lineage and more about Murakami, his work in relation to Japanese art, and the next great selfie. <\/span><\/p>\n

Morgan Williamson<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Download Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA October 18, 2017 \u2013 April 1, 2018 The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston\u2019s exhibition Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics, organized in collaboration with Japanese art historian Professor Nobuo Tsuji, combines the contemporary art of Takashi Murakami with that of the MFA\u2019s permanent Japanese art collection. The exhibition attempts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11070,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11070"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3177,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions\/3177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}