"Seoul, Kawaii Summer Vacation explores Murakami's use of floral motifs across a variety of media, techniques, and formats. The artist's instantly recognizable smiling flower was originally inspired by the focus on natural forms that characterizes nihonga, the traditional form of Japanese painting in which he was trained. It first appeared in his work in 1995 and resonates with his "Superflat" aesthetic, in which classical techniques are combined with popular imagery-particularly graphic devices borrowed from the interconnected fields of anime and manga, the subcultural phenomenon of obsessive otaku, and the ubiquitous "cute" aesthetic known as kawaii -on a flat picture plane."
"Along with other icons such as the Mr. DOB character, floral icons populate an ever-expanding body of work in print, film, digital art, and merchandise-as well as painting and sculpture-in which Murakami draws on both historical and contemporary forms and subjects while navigating the fluctuations of the global art market."
Seoul, Kawaii Summer Vacation presents new paintings and sculptures by Takashi Murakami at the APMA Cabinet in the David Chipperfield-designed Amorepacific headquarters in central Seoul, opening September 2. The exhibition marks Murakami's return to South Korea after a 2023 Busan retrospective and his first solo show in Seoul since 2013. The works examine floral motifs across media, techniques, and formats, centering the smiling flower inspired by nihonga and introduced in 1995. The flower aligns with Murakami's Superflat aesthetic, merging classical technique with popular graphic imagery from anime, manga, otaku culture, and kawaii. Floral icons appear across prints, film, digital art, merchandise, painting, and sculpture, presented as singular portraits or elaborate constellations that blend practiced artisanship with broad visual appeal.
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