C'est Kawaii

In a move that is the epitome of the perfect f*cked up mix of high and low, Takashi Murakami, arguably the most important pop artist today, holds a retrospective of his anime-themed ouevre at none other than über haughty French landmark, the Place des Versailles. Genius.


Murakami is the originator of the term superflat, a word he coined to describe the blending of high and low art, specifically (according to Wikipedia) to various flattened forms in Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture and fine arts, as well as the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture." Murakami often refers to Japanese anime art, where story lines can often be as two dimensional as the artwork that tells them (which is not to say they aren't complicated, but they tend to have their recurring, rather facile themes... but that's a whole other article), and elevates them by his re-appropriation. But this aspect of it is what makes the Versailles exhibition so perfect. It would be one thing to show these pieces in a white-walled museum, but the jarring quality of the pop art themes set against the height of excessive baroque French regalia is just an irony too delicious to overlook.








images all from chateauversailles.fr.

Murakami at Versailles is open only until December 12, 2010. I'd say turn off that video of Naruto and contact Air France now.