Highlights | Takashi Murakami: The 500 Arhats

Highlights

727, Ensō (circle) and Abstraction | Daruma | Mr. DOB | The 500 Arhats – "Blue Dragon" and "White Tiger" | The 500 Arhats – "Black Tortoise" and "Vermilion Bird"

Daruma

Daruma the Great 2007
Acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on board 1601 x 3510 x 50mm (6 panels) Private Collection
Courtesy Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
(C)2007 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Takashi Murakami unveiled his first Daruma (Bodhidharma) paintings in 2007, signaling a new direction in which he would tackle afresh the traditions of Japanese art.

The adjacent work in the exhibition shows the anecdote, also famously depicted in the ink and wash painting by Sesshu Tōyō, about Taiso Eka (Dazu Huike) cutting off his own arm to prove his resolve to Bodhidharma, who had initially refused to teach him. Murakami focuses on Eka’s arm, emphasizing the pictorial composition rather than the anecdotal content.

Located in the center of the gallery is The Birth Cry of a Universe, a sculptural work which Murakami also refers to as a "Daruma" work. It is his latest venture in innovative sculpture, following on Mister Pointy, which was installed in the Mohri Garden at Roppongi Hills in 2005, and Oval Buddha, unveiled at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Representing the reality of our contemporary social structure—with its constant pursuit of development—collapsing under its own weight, it resembles on one hand a monster, while on the other its body, sparkling with gold, is infused with majesty. In arriving at this figure, a giant writhing body with 354 eyes, 105 whiskers and over 1200 teeth, Murakami was conscious of the lineage of "formal deterioration" in sculpture. Thematically linked to our deteriorating world and expressing the unsettled state of the artist’s mind, this endless, massive sculpture is still incomplete after having been worked on for over ten years.

727, Ensō (circle) and Abstraction | Daruma | Mr. DOB | The 500 Arhats – "Blue Dragon" and "White Tiger" | The 500 Arhats – "Black Tortoise" and "Vermilion Bird"

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