Takashi Murakami - New Now & Design Hong Kong Sunday, November 26, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “Sometimes he’s playful and sweet. Sometimes he’s more menacing. Sometimes he’s being affected by all these external forces. Or is even able to maybe create certain moods and ideas that reflect his own personal and artistic struggles, and channel that into Mr. DOB.”
    — Michael Darling on Takashi Murakami and Mr. DOB

     

    Achieving a playful balance between cute and menacing, commodity and art, Forest of DOB by Takashi Murakami synthesises contemporary culture to blur the lines between high art and popular culture. Utilising Murakami’s famed visual lexicon, it features his self-created cartoon character MR. DOB, who has since become synonymous with the artist’s oeuvre. An early representation of the artist’s alter ego, MR. DOB is presented as a dual-faced creature with numerous eyes and two mouths – one smiling joyfully, the other bearing sharp teeth with an almost demonic grimace. Physically manifesting the letters D, O and B, they are printed on nodules scattered across the vinyl surface in reference to its name.

       

    Exhibited alongside similar works at prestigious institutions and galleries worldwide, including SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Zurich and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Forest of DOB cleverly brings to life the titular character via the use of vinyl chloride and helium to create an inflatable balloon . Acknowledged to be the father of the Superflat movement, Murakami is typically known for his flat aesthetic, a reference to the flattened imagery found in both traditional Japanese art as well as recent 2D graphics, which includes anime and manga. Subverting his typical style however, the present 3D work is suspended in mid-air as it towers over viewers. Reminiscent of Murakami’s own mass-produced balloons, it oscillates between an innocent children’s toy that brings joy, and the embodiment of an ominous undertone that stems from MR. DOB’s partially menacing appearance. 

     

    “In any case, the important thing in art is how you express your reality; it’s crucial to accurately depict the influences you have received in life through various methods and grammars of art.”
    — Takashi Murakami

     

    Drawing inspiration from various streams of popular culture, MR. DOB was initially based on other famous Japanese and Western fictional characters. “I set out to investigate the secret of market survivability – the universality of characters such as Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog, Doraemon, Miffy, Hello Kitty, and their knock-offs, produced in Hong Kong,” he said in a statement. i At first hoping to birth a uniquely Japanese figure with universal appeal, the villainous transformation of an originally kawaii creature reflects a deeper contemplation of psychological trauma, colonialism and consumerism in post-war Japan, one that is also reflected in the character’s name: a contraction of the slang phrase dobojite dobojite (why? Why?), MR. DOB serves to question the world around it by constantly evolving and changing forms to adapt its surroundings. More than a celebration of Japanese aesthetics and subculture, Forest of DOB is thus a response to the conditions and sensibilities of a contemporary era that questions just how superficial and overwhelming modern life can be.

     


    i Takashi Murakami quoted in Keith Estiler, ‘“Mr. DOB”: Takashi Murakami's Most Famous Character Explained’, HypeArt, 18 April 2019, online

    • Provenance

      SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo
      Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
      Clyde and Karen Beswick, Los Angeles
      Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1998)
      Christie's, New York, 7 March 2012, lot 32
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Tokyo, SCAI The Bathhouse, Crazy Z, 24 October – 18 November 1995
      Zurich, Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Personal Brandscape, 26 August – 22 October 2000
      Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; New York, Brooklyn Museum; Frankfurt, Museum für Moderne Kunst; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, © MURAKAMI, 29 October 2007 - 31 May 2009 (illustrated, pp. 172-173)

    • Artist Biography

      Takashi Murakami

      Japanese • 1962

      Takashi Murakami is best known for his contemporary combination of fine art and pop culture. He uses recognizable iconography like Mickey Mouse and cartoonish flowers and infuses it with Japanese culture. The result is a boldly colorful body of work that takes the shape of paintings, sculptures and animations.

      In the 1990s, Murakami founded the Superflat movement in an attempt to expose the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture." The artist plays on the familiar aesthetic of mangas, Japanese-language comics, to render works that appear democratic and accessible, all the while denouncing the universality and unspecificity of consumer goods. True to form, Murakami has done collaborations with numerous brands and celebrities including Kanye West, Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams and Google.

      View More Works

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Forest of DOB

vinyl chloride and helium gas
280 x 250 x 250 cm. (110 1/4 x 98 3/8 x 98 3/8 in.)
Executed in 1995.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$500,000 - 700,000 
€58,800-82,300
$64,100-89,700

Contact Specialist

Angela Tian
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now & Design Sale
20th Century & Contemporary Art, Hong Kong
+852 2318 2058
AngelaTian@phillips.com

New Now & Design

Hong Kong Auction 26 November 2023