Takashi Murakami

Gagosian Gallery

13 November 2010 - 15 Jannuary 2011

www.gagosian.com

by Sara Pelliccia

Until January the 15th,two gigantic acrylic paintings Dragon in Clouds-Red Mutation and Dragon in Clouds-Indigo Blue by Takashi Murakami- each comprising nine panels and measuring eighteen meters long- will be occupying the entire exhibition space of the Gagosian Gallery in Rome. A mixture of Japanese mythology joined with references to popular Japanese video games characterizes these works, in which overloaded ink rips verge on abstraction, giving life to a fantastic world populated by two gorgeous dragons. Actually, the exhibition is an investigation into the metaphoric meaning of this creature which, on the one hand, according to Western iconography, is seen as a terrible monster, on the other hand, is considered as a symbol of good fortune and optimism by the Buddhists.

The show is, indeed, grounded on the theme of ambiguity, strengthened also by the contrast between the redness of one painting and the blueness of the other. Immediately entering into the room, the viewer is confused about the content and the sense of what he/she is looking at. Is this a jungle populated by strange animals without a body or is this the representation of a nightmare? I would say: both, and just in this dichotomy of the image, it is contained the magic and the fascination of Murakami’s art. In Dragon in Clouds-Red Mutation, the volumetric outlines of the swirls and the vast claws sprawl across the panel, while the chiaroscuro effects of the dragon’s body gives to the work a sense of depth. The image of the red dragon referring to the eponymous novel by Tomas Harris, suggests an idea of bloody death and massacre, as it is typical of the horror movies. In contrast, in Dragon in Clouds-Indigo Blue, the frenetic swirls surrounding the dragon’s pupils and its flared nostrils combined with serpentine whiskers make this panel a funny reproduction of the Japanese video game, “Blue Dragon.”In addition, the blueness of the painting suggests as sense of peacefulness and religious silence contrasting with the sense of violence emerging in the red panel.

In their “superflat” style, which employs classical Japanese painting techniques to depict a super-charged mix of Pop, manga e otaku, these monochromatic panels seem to evoke something “transcendental” with a particular reference to the religious theories of Shinto. The idea of the presence of “the divine” in nature is exemplified in Murakami’s painting through the representation of a dynamic dragon, whose long mustache and energized claws express the turbulence of the natural phenomena. Nevertheless, although the two dragons produce a disquieting effect on the viewer because of the contrast of colors and the forcefulness of the drawing, nevertheless, they become emblems of the intrinsic link between art and psyche. The dragon is, indeed, a monster, but also a divine creature, just as art is a combination of a “monstrous” genius and supernatural inspiration. The two paintings are, therefore, the representation of the creative process of the artist’s mind who, through fantasy and intuition, elaborates his own dreams and nightmares to create his dragon, art.