photo: FUKUNAGA Kazuo
Sea Breeze
| Artist | MURAKAMI Takashi |
|---|---|
| Year | 1992 |
| Material/ Technique | iron, stainless steel, shutter, mercury lamp, caster, wheels, ventilator, flashing lamps |
| Size/ Duration | H350 × W480 × D250cm |
| Copyright Notice | ©1992 Takashi Murakami / Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. |
| Year of acquisition/ donation | 2000（作品購入年月日：2000/09/27） |
| Description | Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1962. Lives and works in Tokyo and New York, USA. Murakami Takashi studied Nihon-ga (Japanese-style painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he completed his doctorate in 1993. Since unveiling his works using Japanese-style painting and plastic models at his first solo show in 1989, Murakami has persistently challenged the context of Western dominated art by referencing culture peculiar to Japan as represented by the likes of anime, manga, pop-culture and otaku. His artistic practice extends to collaborations with the fashion industry, planning exhibitions, and presiding over the GEISAI art fair, among many other activities. Recent output includes a large-scale solo exhibition in Qatar in 2012, where he unveiled ＜Five Hundred Arhats＞, a painting 100 meters long depicting a Japan moving forward amid the distortion and despair of Japanese society. His first feature film, ＜Jellyfish Eyes＞ (2013), screened at theatres throughout Japan. "Sea Breeze" consists of a large, box-like structure on wheels. Murakami compares this work, which emits an incredible 16,000 watts of energy in the form of intense heat and light from the 16 mercury-vapor lamps inside when the shutters on each side are opened, to the light emanated when, according to Japanese mythology, the giant rock sealing the Heavenly Cave where the Sun Goddess sheltered was pushed aside. Despite calling into question the historical facts and memories surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb, this work bedazzles audiences in an instant and is brimming with an almost intoxicating energy. For the 2012 exhibition “Son et Lumière, et sagesse profonde,” Murakami presented "Sea Breeze: Another Dimension, 2012 Version", making Sea Breeze an element of a space surrounded by walls he covered with a mural. A palette of fluorescent pink, yellow and black, plus two rows of slits arranged facing the light from "Sea Breeze", plus images that signify nuclear explosion, massacre, and death such as of mushroom clouds and skulls – all hyper light and brilliant – shroud the entire wall. "Cosmos" links quintessentially classical subject matter in the form of flowers with character-themed elements such as anime and manga. The title derives from the fundamental principle of the universe, which is that everything has a spiral structure. The sense of weightlessness that stems from the work’s sheer frontality and flatness, and the airiness that pervades the flowers, which are reminiscent of a characterless smile, hint at a superficial sense of spaciousness as well as the unstable state of mind of modern humans. |
NOTES
This Collection Data page contains the works and materials in the collection of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as of April 1, 2018.
Artists are listed alphabetically by artist’s surname.
Works and materials by the same artists are listed according to the date of the work in principle.
Works whose dates are unidentified are listed at the end of each item. Some works are not listed according to the date of work due to their relations.
The data of works and materials are listed in order of title, production year, material/technique/form, dimensions, donor’s name, copyright holder and credit for photograph.
Dimensions are given by height (H) x width (W) in centimeters for plane work, and height (H) x width (W) x depth (D) in cm for 3-D work. Diameter (Ø) is used for circular work.
For the name of country or city, the name currently used in English is listed in principle.