A couple of weeks ago I went to Los Angeles to visit my brother Ari. Planning expertly for my visit, he crafted an itinerary highlighting food, excercise and art. We began Saturday with a hike up Runyan Canyon, followed by a well-deserved brunch, and then topped off with a thorough exploration of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's newest special exhibits.
We began our visit to LACMA with the Art of Imagination, a comprehensive yet somewhat monotonous exhibition of Edo-period Japanese painting. My disenchantment with the exhibit undoubtedly resulted from the fact that we unknowingly entered the annex of the exhibit before we viewed the main space. Unfortunately for us and I am sure many other viewers, the paintings in the annex were incredibly dull in comparison to the dazzling landscapes, enchanting tigers and brilliantly plumed peacocks that were on view in the main exhibit hall.
I am not sure I understand what the curators were thinking in their arrangement of the paintings--grouping strong works all together dilutes the prowess of each individual piece. Additionally, 10 lack-luster paintings look even worse en masse than they do individually. So overall, the Art of Imagination's art- induced bliss factor was zero.
Nonetheless, I found plenty of noteworthy and even inspirational creations. The highlight of the exhibit for me was not beautiful, intriguing or technically impressive. Instead, the work spurred a visceral reaction- it propelled me into an intense few moments of deja-vu.
Just as Takashi Murakami's series of large-scale portraits of the Zen master Daruda had captivated me several months ago at the Brooklyn Museum, here at LACMA, the famous Zen sage Daruda, hung on the wall just high enough to tower above me, lured me strait into his bulbous eyeball.
Daruda was an Indian sage, the founder of Zen Buddhism. Legend has it that he attained enlightenmnt after sitting in meditation before the wall of Shaolin monastery for 9 years, without blinking his eyes. During this process, his arms and legs atrophied and fell off.
When viewing the jpegs here (#1 is the LACMA Daruda and 2, 3, 4 are Murakami's) you might sympathize with the head-trip I experieneced. This Edo-period Daruda portrait at LACMA looks strikingly similar, albeit much older, to the Murakami versions I had seen a few months ago in Brooklyn. (click to enlarge)
Exxagerated, almost caricatured facial features are the focal points of both the Edo-period Daruda and Murakami's renditions. Clearly, the ancient canonical image of Daruda has traversed time and hurdled continents: the master's stern expression, characterized by weighty eyelids, bulging eyeballs and grimacing lips is unchanged- at least in Murakami's interpretation.
I was delighted to see this Daruda at LACMA because it began to give context to Murakami's portriats, which I had been so struck by in Brooklyn months ago yet hadn't began investigating.
Born in Tokyo in 1962, Murakami, often called the Japanese Andy Warhol, is one of the most influential and aclaimed artists to have emerged from Asia in the late 20th Century. He has created a wide ranging body of work that consciously bridges fine art, design, animation, fashion and popular culture.
Trained in the 19th Century Japanese style of Nihonga, which blends Western and Eastern painting styles, Murakami's work examines established dichotomies-- high art and popular culture, East and West, present and past, humor and gravity, skepticism and belief.
With technical virtuosity and insightful critical analysis of contemporary American and Japanese pop cultures, he merges traditional Japanese painting styles and social commentary; the dystopic worlds of Japanese anime and manga cartoons are instilled with a sardonic yet strangely beautiful and utopic timbre.
These two images exemplify his signature imagery and style. (click to enlarge)
The resulting compositions, saturated with grinning daisys, hyper-sexualized youth, colorful mushrooms and fantastical, blissed-out characters, indeed feel sarcastic in their apparent frivolity. The artist admittedly states about his work, "I paint hopelessness"
Against the backdrop of Murakami's super-charged oeuvre described above, the Daruda portrait series is a welcomed and dramatic diversion. Partly because the portraits so diligently nod to Japanese historical painting, partly because their lyrical style exudes the Zen spirit that Daruda exemplifies, and partly because in the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, the portraits offer us a moment of silence in an otherwise dizzying torrent of color, iconography and dramatic action, the Daruda portraits are truly awesome.
Each portrait in Murakami's Daruda series is rooted in classical Japanese painting tradition. For example, each work is signed in Japanese characters down the side of the canvas, a convention Murakami has never before utilized. Murakami also emplys classically primitive brushwork-- one thick yet sinuous stroke outlines the entire visage of the Zen master. Finally, each portrait is accompanied by a Zen proverb written by Daruda, the quotations further substantiating Murakami's attention to detail and authenticity.
Yet Murakami's renderings are unmistakably his and obviously contemporary. They hint so slightly of his pop characters, perhaps because he mixed an unnatural pink for Daruda's skin- a color that resembles the flesh of a cartoon character. Other unmistakable Murakami-isms are the splashes of hot pink, turquoise, saffron and wasabi green that highlight Daruda's eyeballs, whiskers and eyebrows.
Murakami's affinity for indulging in luxurious materials is also illustrated in these portraits. My favorite of this series is one in which Daruda has been placed against a background of generously applied fine black glitter. In two others, Murakami has chosen gold leaf and platinum, those shiny and elegant surfaces contrasting with the austerity Daruda projects.
In the past decade, Murakami has been elevated to celebrity status in American popular culture, thanks in part to his collaborations with fashion designers Luis Vuitton and marc Jacobs, and hip-hop icon Kanye West. (Murakami created the cover art for Kanye's latest album, "The Graduation")
Yet his Daruda portraits, though highly acclaimed amongst some critics, are so atypical for Murakami that they are probably often overlooked.
So who or what inspired Murakami's Daruda series?
Whether the artist was commissioned by Larry Gagosian (owner of Gagosian Gallery, where the Daruda portrait series premierd) or not, these portraits speak volumes about the artist's attention to and reverance for his ancestral cultural roots, despite his apparent obsession with pop culture.
Undoubtedly, some of his interest, concern and motivation for these and all of his works lie in the concepts of 'utopia' and 'dystopia' , in the comparison of the messages proliferated by the ancient Zen masters and the messages communicated via popular culture today. Certainly, Murakami is studied and experienced enough to suggest that 'utopia' and 'dystopia' are imagined conditions that will never be conceived or actualized independently of each other. His illustrious yet grave and edgy artwork illuminates this suggestion.
"That I may transcend time, that a universe my heart may unfold" -Daruda
