Most people would agree that a purse is not on par with a Van Gogh. Western art traditionally mandates a clear division between critically driven fine art and commercially driven popular culture. But the launch of three pop-culture-centered exhibitions in Los Angeles this month suggests that this line is starting to disappear.
The ©MURAKAMI exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art downtown features the work of prolific artist Takashi Murakami. A Tokyo native, Murakami is famous for using anime-inspired images, refashioned as ironic commentaries on contemporary society.
His factory-like studio pumps out everything from Louis Vuitton purses and Kanye West album art, to paintings that sell for $1.6 million, according to the New York Times. His work, like Warhol’s soup cans and Lichtenstein’s comic strips, bridges the gap between the commercial and critical worlds of pop culture and high art.
“Murakami makes art fun, makes it recognizable,” said Alana Purcell, a fourth-year anthropology student who went to the ©MURAKAMI exhibition. “It’s elegant and mysterious and bright, interesting without seeming depressed, a style that works for both artistic and commercial endeavors.”
However, unlike his forebears’ exhibitions, Murakami’s MOCA show features not only his paintings and sculptures, but also his products designed for the mass-market.
For Purcell, this interlacing of pop culture with high art brought her to the MOCA ©MURAKAMI exhibition. “I went to the exhibition because of his high profile, because of the purses,” Purcell said. “I have seen the Louis Vuitton purses everywhere. (His work is) recognizable because it’s commercial, but I appreciate his style.”
This fusion of high art and pop culture is not restricted to Murakami. “Giant Robot Biennale: 50 issues” at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), located steps away from the MoCA, features pop-culture-inspired work by 10 contemporary artists. Evoking Alice in Wonderland-like images, several of the pieces in the exhibition have a cartoon-like feel, adorned with landscapes and characters found only in the strangest of fantasies.
APAK Studio’s “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter” series of paintings portrays neon floral scenes, while others take their influence from graffiti and fast food culture, such as a 20-foot wall mural by David Choe.
Choe, a Korean-American muralist and graphic artist, for example, tapped into both worlds by silk screening one of his images onto skateboard decks, personalizing the back of each one with an intimate, Pollock-like spray of paint and blood. And though not as widely regarded as Murakami, many of Choe’s paintings are beyond the price range of the middle-class. By supplying personalized, mass-produced pieces, Choe accesses a market that in the past has been neglected by the art community.
“(These artists) are really good at making products and packaging. A lot of artists are making high-end retail, which is very powerful in Asia, especially Japan,” said Eric Nakamura, a UCLA alum who co-founded Asian pop-culture magazine Giant Robot and assembled the artwork for the JANM exhibition. “(But) what’s behind it all is real skill … your product’s highlight is still the artwork.”
The third of these exhibitions, “Beyond Ultraman: Seven Artists Explore the Vinyl Frontier” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, focuses on artists turning to the mass-production and culture of toys as medium for artistic expression.
According to Maria Kwong, Director of LATDA (Los Angeles Toy, Doll and Amusements) Museum and curator of the Pasadena exhibit, new technologies and forums for display allow artists to self-produce toys and other products rather than rely on corporations. This new mind-set encourages connectivity with the full spectrum of society.
“I think it is more that artists are finding a wider range of venues in which to display their work, beyond the traditional museum or gallery environment,” Kwong said. “Using commercially produced products as media for an artist’s work is a way of allowing more accessibility to owning art to a wider range of people.”
In order to stay grounded in this newly flooded art market, museums are also increasingly showing work that appeals to both the art critic and the common consumer, as evidenced by this month’s three exhibitions.
This deviation from tradition is unlikely to cease any time soon. Murakami, by successfully blending entrepreneur and artist together, has opened up the door to artists across the world.
The future of art may no longer be contained to museum walls, but rather found on the arms of fashionistas and in the CD players of students across Los Angeles.
“Any functional object that is uplifted by visual treatment thoughtfully produced by an artist improves the quality of life for us all. Why should everyday objects be badly or thoughtlessly designed?” Kwong said.