Turning “low art” and taking it to a higher degree of contemporary art, is the essence of Takashi Murakami. Subjects and ideas that are categorized as low culture are seamlessly integrated to higher forms of art and other media. His style called Superflat takes its roots from Japanese manga and anime, combined with contemporary western ideas. Andy Warhol’s method of turning everyday products and turning it into art was flipped around by Murakami, who took his art and applied it on them instead.
Murakami doesn’t just create paintings and sculptures, he also is involved with commercial branding and merchandising, applying his eye catching and iconic style on high end brands. One of the high end brands that chose to collaborate with Murakami is Louis Vuitton. Vibrantly crisp colors and Japanese styling was used for one of Louis Vuitton’s signature bags, which was widely successful, becoming the most illegally copied bag ever.Murakami’s Superflat design is a stark contrast to the usually sophisticated and static Louis Litton designed bags. The colorful pattern shown in picture was applied on a white bag, showing complete trust in the marketability of Murakami’s art. It’s not every day that you find these clashing hues and multi colored eyes imprinted on a designer bag look appealing, but his art has been so popular and widely accepted that contemporary low culture designs like these are transferable to the high class fashion industry. Effortlessly blurring the line between art and commercial branding.
