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 groovisions CHAPPIE 33 2001 |
Superflat presents works by 19 of the most exciting artists working
in Japan today in painting, photography, works on paper, video, fashion,
computer animation, cartoons, performance, and sculpture. While all of
these artists lend support to Murakami's argument about two-dimensionality,
each also explores and exceeds the limits of their respective genres.
For example, Koji Morimoto, best known for designing the opening credits
for MTV Japan, makes sketches and animations that take their inspiration
from 17th-century Japanese scrolls and statues. Likewise, the styled photographs
of Masafumi Sanai and Chikashi Suzuki deal with prevalent cultural subjects
while imitating the look of fashion and commercial photography.
 Bome OGATA RINA 2000 |
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Fashion itself plays a significant part in Japanese culture, and many artists are working within the everyday reality of ready-to-wear clothing. A performance group as well as a clothing line, 20471120 stages elaborate large-scale fashion shows that invite audience participation. The brand's mantra is "fashion, art, and character." The graphic design firm groovisions, on the other hand, has created a persona called "Chappie" that appears many places, often multiple times in the same instance, wearing different outfits. The Chappie boys and girls are distinguishable only by the clothing they wear, making a poignant statement about the place of fashion in our lives. "Cute," cartoonlike images, known in Japanese as kawaii, are a predominant part of contemporary commercial culture. In Yoshitomo Nara's cartoonishly aggressive punk children, Chiho Aoshima's digitally rendered girls, or Kentaro Takekuma's familiar cartoon image ofThomas the Tank Engine (a project that aims to deter suicidal commuters from jumping in front of trains), Japan's consumer culture of cuteness is analyzed and dismantled through a variety of provocative strategies. In Murakami's argument, all of this work can be traced back visually through the techniques of anime to a wide range of premodern Japanese master painters. It is this legacy of the superflat that lives on today in the cultural DNA of contemporary Japanese art and visual culture at large.