Little Boy

[Rocket Punch]

Won this book by Takashi Murakami at a raffle yesterday. Was flipping through it briefly and gotta say there's a lot of great pics and photos in here.

Internationally renowned Japanese artist Murakami interprets the complexity of postwar Japanese art in a defining and spectacularly well-illustrated bilingual (English and Japanese) volume. Murakami coined the term superflat to describe the two-dimensional aspect of manga (comics) and anime (animated television and film), pop-culture media that have greatly influenced Japanese fine art. But superflat has societal implications as well, which are revealed when Murakami and his contributors trace the impact of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Japanese art and culture (Little Boy is the code name of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima); analyze kawaii, the culture of cuteness (think Hello Kitty); and dissect the pop-culture movement known as otaku. A dazzling array of works--ranging from the first Godzilla movie to the anime masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion to the provocative paintings of Chiho Aoshima--is accompanied by essays that delve deeply into their sources, themes, and resonance. The result is a superlative overview that will thrill manga and anime enthusiasts, and open up a new world of cutting-edge aesthetics and social critique to readers unversed in the fully loaded imagery and daring styles of Japan's globally embraced artistic innovations.

Gonna sit down with this monster (400+pages) this weekend and really read it. It's currently residing on the top of my coffee table to fool visitors into thinking I'm cultured.

If any of you are into the high-art scene then I'm sure you've seen Murakami's stuff. He's the man behind Mr. DOB and has had shows at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris.

Definitely high-brow stuff most of which I don't get. His Mr. DOB stuff is pretty trippy to look at though.

[Renato]

Check out the Daicon IV stuff in there. It's a good book but it was too much money for me to purchase.

[Rocket Punch]

Check out the Daicon IV stuff in there.  It's a good book but it was too much money for me to purchase.

392321[/snapback]

Yeah the Daicon IV opening (with screencaps) is the first thing they talk about in the book.

Did you click on the link I provided? Amazon has it for less than $40.

[Mr March]

Quite interesting. Plenty of the reviews discuss the nature of the artwork itself and the social/ideological/cultural interpretations of the pieces, though I'm a bit hazy on what the actual book covers. There are many aspects of japanese culture worth a look, but I'd like to know more specifics on this particular book.

[Rocket Punch]

I'll write a book report once I'm done reading it for myself. Would you like it double-spaced?

[Mr March]

I'll write a book report once I'm done reading it for myself.  Would you like it double-spaced?

392504[/snapback]

I expect nothing less You're also being timed and graded, so chop, chop!