The king of superflat, Takashi Murakami, comes back with the exhibition Mononoke.

Cartel oficial de la exposición Mononoke de Takashi Murakami en el Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art

The renowned artist Takashi Murakami presents Mononoke, a large-scale exhibition at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum, in celebration of the institution's 90th anniversary. Mononoke is a very special event since it is the first time in eight years that Murakami shows his work in Japan, and the first time in his career that he does it outside Tokyo. The ancient capital of Japan is a great source of inspiration for Murakami; Kyoto welcomed numerous eshi painters during the Edo period, who worked with woodblock printing techniques and cultivated the ukiyo-e genre. Murakami is creating special versions of some of his works such as Kawaii – Vacances (Summer Vacation in the Kingdom of the Golden) (2008) and the Korin series (2015), as well as 160 new pieces, inspired by Japan's traditional art and Kyoto's history. Mononoke opened on February 3rd, but in the first room, we find a personal note from Murakami himself announcing that the exhibition is still in progress, and that some of the works will be modified and incorporated into the museum during the course of the event.

The exhibition was made possible through the coordination between the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art and the artist. To counteract the low budget of the institution, Murakami researched the local tax system to minimize production costs for the event. He offers limited edition collectible cards of his work, which allow for tax refunds. In this way, he has not only made it possible for the Japanese public to reconnect with his work but also made a criticism on the current model that links cultural production and the dissemination to economic power. The artist explains that he accepted the commission of the project because the proposition was made by Mr. Shinya Takahashi, the General Director of the Project Management Office of the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, with whom he has a solid professional relationship of trust.

In Mononoke we find the different artistic sides and diverse interests of Murakami's work, who divides the exhibition into six sections. The artist mixes Japanese and Buddhist references with elements of Western culture, questioning the meaning of appropriation and advocating for the manifestations of mainstream culture such as anime and manga. Throughout his career, Murakami has transcended the artistic niche, turning his art into a fashion icon, collaborating with international stars like Billie Eilish, Kanye, Britney Spears, and J Balvin, as well as renowned luxury brands like Comme des Garçons, Louis Vuitton, and even Billionaire Boys Club, created by Pharrell Williams. Murakami has broken the mold by reaching an audience typically distant from museum institutions, but who purchases his (not cheap) merchandise as a symbol of status. When they visit museums, it is primarily to take pictures in front of his artworks and post them on Instagram and TikTok, feeding their amount of followers. The creator of the famous flowers with faces understood the art market system in the midst of capitalism's triumph and created a series of flowers that mimic the aesthetic of pixel style, which he later reproduced in paintings, prints, and a collection of up to 11,664 NFTs. Murakami has become so popular outside of Japan for his colorful flowers that we may even be surprised when we see works by the artist that do not reference this motif.

Two large sculptures of 4.3 meters in height, welcome the public, facing a pink sea of smiling sakura, the popular cherry blossom flowers. These sculptures, one blue and the other red of the demons A and Um (2014), symbolize disasters such as natural catastrophes, epidemics or wars, and contain a prayer for protection. Both were created in the wake of the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, causing more than 15,000 deaths. This impressive entrance is a clear symbol of the title and theme of the exhibition; Mononoke refers to mysterious spiritual beings from traditional Japanese literature. It is a broad term, which can be written as 物の怪 (mysterious things) or 物の気 (spiritual things). It is said that these creatures can possess people and make them suffer, become ill and even cause their death.

Murakami begins the exhibition by paying homage to the city of Kyoto with the large mural Rakuchu Rakugai Zu Matabei Iwasa rip (2023-24), an adaptation of the original 17th-century painting by Matabei Iwasa titled Rakuchu Rakugai Zu Byobu, which is part of the National Treasure and depicts the life of Kyoto and its landscapes from the perspective of a bird. The artist from Itabashi reimagines the work and resizes it to 13 meters in length, incorporating typical elements of his work such as figures with flower faces and yokai, supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. In the same room, Murakami pays tribute to the artist Ogata Korin, a member of the Rinpa school, one of the major painting academies in Japan during the Edo period, founded in Kyoto by Hon'ami Kōetsu and Tawaraya Sōtatsu. Ogata Korin, along with his brother, was one of the leading representatives of Rinpa and established a style known for images of floral and animal elements on a golden and shiny background of gold leaf, which Murakami incorporates into much of his paintings.

The second part of the exhibition takes advantage of the museum's walls aligned with the four cardinal points and is dedicated to the guardians of the city of Kyoto that preserve them. They are represented in four large paintings: the black turtle of the north, the vermilion bird of the south, the blue dragon of the east, and the white tiger of the west. The audience is surrounded by the creatures and the black walls, stamped with the typical skulls of Murakami's work. In the center of the room stands a hexagonal tower with a sculpture of the Buddhist temple Rokkakudo of Kyoto. Bells were rung in the temple to warn citizens of potential disasters.

In DOB’s Journey Murakami shares the personal process and concerns he faced when he began painting. The artistic sector was dominated by the United States, the war victor, leading to a sense of inferiority complex among parts of Japanese society. The painter explains how he learned to navigate these tumultuous feelings and transformed them into a driving force for his art through the character of Dob, created in the nineties. With Dob, Murakami combines Japanese pictorial tradition and the exoticism of the country with a more Western artistic style. Amid the various works depicting Dob, there is a large acrylic painting with numerous eyes of the character, reminiscent of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, a method repeated with various motifs in his work. His creations embody the Superflat style, invented by Murakami himself, described as a movement breaking the boundaries between high and low culture. He blends traditional Japanese painting techniques like nihon-ga with elements of graphic design and graffiti, addressing consumerism and the sexualization of trends like otaku culture with figures strongly influenced by anime. Superflat precisely addresses the use of traditional methods and the blending of styles and cultural references, with many works in Mononoke portraying figures from Buddhism and Shintoism like Fūjin and Raijin, the gods of wind and thunder, reinterpreted by Murakami with a kawaii style, far less solemn than typically used to represent them, thus transforming the perspective with which we approach beliefs. The exhibition concludes with a painting inspired by the Gozan Okuribi festival, held on August 16th marking the end of Obon. The work depicts the five smiling hills surrounding Kyoto, illuminated during the celebration with bonfires in the shape of Chinese characters Daimonji (large), Myō/Hō (wonderful dharma), Funagata (boat), Hidari Daimonji (large left), and Toriigata (in reference to the torii gates found at the entrances of Shinto shrines).

Throughout the exhibition, running until September 1st, Murakami demonstrates great respect and inspiration for national tradition, folklore, and the city of Kyoto. Undoubtedly, Mononoke is a unique opportunity to delve deeply into Murakami's eclectic work, appreciate its multiple facets, and approach his work with a fresh perspective, accompanied by his personal comments found throughout the exhibition. The artist and the city of Kyoto exchange mutual gifts, offering and sharing them with the city's residents and the thousands of visitors it receives annually.