Takashi Murakami Exhibition at the Kyocera Museum of Art Kyoto Japan

Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami's Flower Parent and Child sculpture is now exhibited at the Kyocera Museum of Art in Kyoto, Japan. The art installation was first showcased in Tokyo in 2020 and is now featured as part of the museum's Takashi Murakami — Mononoke Kyoto exhibition. The exhibition displays 170 works by renowned contemporary Japanese artists.

The French luxury fashion brand collaborated with Murakami to create the "symbol of hope" sculpture during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sculpture is now floating on a pond in the museum's garden, with the artist's signature Flower Parent and Child cast in gold on top of a massive Monogram Multicolor Trunk. The trunk is designed based on the one that appeared in Louis Vuitton and Murakami's 2003 collaboration. In the sculptural version, Murakami maintains the trunk's canvas facade, metal details, and wood composition.

Takashi Murakami Exhibition at the Kyocera Museum of Art

The sculpture is 13 meters high and is one of the many large-scale pieces on display in the exhibition. Among the other notable pieces is Murakami's newly-produced Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Byōbu: Iwasa Matabei RIP, which is a series of works based on cardinal directions. Additionally, his Hexagonal Double-Helix Tower wards off disturbances from four divine symbols.

Takashi Murakami will hold a major solo exhibition at the Kyocera Museum of Art in Kyoto, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. The artist, who is currently mainly developing overseas, has held a large-scale solo exhibition in Japan for the first time in eight years, and it is also the first time he has held a solo exhibition in a Japanese city other than Tokyo.

Murakami's previous exhibition "Superflat" toured major cities in Japan and the United States from 2000 to 2001. The "Hyperplane Manifesto" released by the exhibition has had an important impact on the field of contemporary art. With this concept, Murakami not only connects traditional Japanese pictorial expressions with popular culture represented by anime, manga, and video games, but also flattens the aesthetics and social outlook of the Japanese people before and after World War II, as well as the capitalist economy, politics, and religion, and integrates them into the entire creative process in a variety of ways, thus creating a variety of works that question the value and essential meaning of art. Murakami's artistic career can be said to have challenged and stimulated the international art world with a unique perspective from Japan, with Europe and the United States as the norm.

The exhibition is set in Kyoto, the place where the painters of the Edo period (1600-1868), who had been deeply interested in Murakami since the early days of his career, and where various arts and performing arts are still alive and well. The exhibition will feature about 170 works, most of which are new, including newly painted oversized works, representative series of works, and works that will be exhibited for the first time in Japan.

The Takashi Murakami — Mononoke Kyoto exhibition is open at the Kyocera Museum of Art until 1st September 2024.

Entrance Fee:

Adults: 2,200 yen (2,000 yen)

University and vocational school students: 1,500 yen (1,300 yen)

High school students: 1,000 yen (800 yen)

Free for junior high school students

and younger *All prices include tax.

*Prices in parentheses are for advance tickets and group tickets of 20 or more

people. ※ Admission is free for persons with a disability certificate and one accompanying person.

For more information, visit the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art website at https://kyotocity-kyocera.museum/tw/