Murakami's Technicolor Vision

We’ve been unabashedly devoted groupies of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for quite some time now, so it should come as no surprise that we’ll be amongst the throngs of art fans rushing over to his awe-inspiring retrospective beginning tomorrow, April 5th at New York’s Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit, organized by LA’s Moca, is the most complete retrospective to date on the widely admired artist. Unlike the recent LA exhibition that put a great deal of onus on his sculptures, the Brooklyn Show leans more heavily on Murakami’s paintings, many of which are peppered with seemingly innocuous images of fantastical fungi and flowers paintings but represent rather perverse and ponderous themes. The exhibition is a sensory overload of sorts featuring entirely too many wrinkles to discuss in this short space, but amongst them is Louis Vuitton boutique of sorts with limited edition bags designed by Murakami on display as well as a room where you can view his Kanye West video. It’s a good thing the exhibit will be around until July 13th, because you may have to go several times to see everything.