The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962. Before receiving his PhD from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Murakami established himself as one of the most prominent among the new artists representing the 'critical pop' tendency which emerged in the Japanese art world in the early 1990s. His early solo exhibitions demonstrated the characteristic for which he has since gained fame: simulation of Japan's popular cultural icons, suggesting their political implications and reflecting the psycho-erotic obsessions of the Japanese post– postwar generations that have come of age at the height of late capitalist prosperity. Wild wild, which showed pneumatic rubber dolls reflecting the Japanese fantasy of Africa, now endowed with white skin and blue eyes and clustered over the world map; and Randosel project, showing children's backpacks made of the skins of animals protected under the Washington Treaty, provoked controversy due to their overt defiance of politically correct attitudes and sly critique of the moral ambiguity of the Japanese capitalistic practice of 'soft sell'. Murakami's deployment of 'cute' images, coupled with the virtues of fine craftsmanship, allowed him to mimic and expose how political hegemony was consolidated in Japan: through seduction; by 'innocent' immersion into the emotional, national totality. In his next cycle of works, Murakami increasingly evaded political interpretation. Works such as Sea breeze (a giant structure consisting of a movable showcase shielded by steel shutters that contained a mysterious object with eight electric lights on each side) and A very merry unbirthday! (in which a giant ball consisting of 369 500 tiny lamps masqueraded as a questionable object of worship) flaunted the disproportionately large size, cost and energy spent in production. They embodied the spirit of expendi– ture, their conspicuous meaninglessness signifying resistance to organisation, legitimation and economy. Murakami's works recapitulate the characteristics of Japanese 'geek' attitude: attention to very specific details of media culture and networking through exchange of information about them. Such an attitude reflects a very specific Japanese postwar cultural situation after the decline of the New Left: the repudiation of high cultural ideology, including humanism and Marxism, as a guiding principle for students and intellectuals. The language shared by the geek generation is predominantly that of fashion and media commodities. The artist's new works reflect on such aspects of geek culture that make it an embodiment of 'abjection', or the 'accursed share' of modern culture that resists sublation into the domain of meaning. DOB, a cartoon figure created by Murakami, is his expression of differance. It reminds one of Mickey Mouse, but not quite. Its precarious relation to the geek culture, in which proper nouns function as signs of legitimacy, indicates Murakami's position that is at once inside and outside of the system of nomination. DOB, whose features evoke Murakami's own, is also his emanation. Its oversized portrait entitled And then and then and then and then and then 1994 and balloons convey a clownish gesture that Takashi Mllllllllll Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan Far left The hellish madness of the game has come to an end leaving you hanging 1994 Vinyl chloride, helium gas,steel, mirror, cutting sheet Height: 600cm Courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo Left And then and then and then and then and then 1994 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas 280x300cm Courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo deconstructs Murakami's aspiration to fame through the double act of self-advertising and denigration. The new DOB balloon, suggestively entitled The hellish madness of the game has come to an end leaving you hanging 1994, most eloquently embodies Murakami's awareness of the drive of expenditure and the 'schizophrenic' love of details that define a geek's world. It is inspired by Puyopuyo, a computer game that involves a frantic destruction of the cloud-shaped entities falling from above. As you bust the army of clouds within the designated time, you are rewarded with such miscellaneous figures as a princess, a castle, etc., that indicate a narrative destination. Nevertheless, at the game's end, you get the message: 'And then, this story ends without any meaning'.This revelation of nothingness captures the essence of a geek's erotic pursuit: supplementation of the ultimate object of desire with local exploits and constant arousal without reaching a climax. Murakami's DOB balloon, which looks into a mirror as it descends from the ceiling, embodies the self– reflexivity determining a geek's forever deferred attempt to reach the other (meaning) outside himself. Murakami's cool acceptance of this negativity resists and challenges the essential ism inherent in the frequent denunciation of post– modern 'pastiche' as an inferior modernism unable to project critical consciousness beyond simulation of other styles. Midori Matsui, Associate Professor,Faculty of Arts and Letters,Tohuku University, Sendai, Japan A RT I s T s : EA s T A s I A I 69