San Francisco hosts monstrous art show from a Japanese legend

The new exhibit from Takashi Murakami, which opened Friday, brings the 61-year-old Japanese artist’s fantastic paintings, creature sculptures and even NFTs to San Francisco for a colorful art show titled “Unfamiliar People — Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego.” The collection features 75 works that date back to the late 1990s, with a dozen never-before-displayed pieces, including one 96-foot-long painting that was custom made for the space. As is typical of art exhibits in 2023, there’s also a selfie opportunity with a neon sign.

In 2000, Murakami came up with the term “Superflat” to describe the collapse of the gap between fine art and pop culture in Japan. Using manga and anime as a jumping off point, Murakami’s work builds on cartoon imagery, but injects it with an often overwhelming level of detail. In keeping with that high/low philosophy, Murakami has worked on projects outside of museum walls, from collaborations with fashion designers like Marc Jacobs (for Louis Vuitton) and Virgil Abloh, as well as musicians like Kanye West (the “Graduation” album cover, “Good Morning” music video), J Balvin (“Colores” album cover) and Billie Eilish, on her animated video for “You Should See Me in a Crown.” And, in keeping with the monster theme, the exhibit displays a 2019 piece created for the 65th anniversary of “Godzilla.”

As the title of the exhibit suggests, the work on display is intended as a commentary on the warping effects of social media, specifically during the pandemic. But as much of a downer as that sounds like, even the darkest pieces are spiked with playful, dopamine-inducing textures that reward close inspection rather than a quick scroll past. 

Like a social media feed, the exhibit is full of dueling perspectives. The work is at times cuddly, with a wallpapered room of his signature smiling flowers, and other times terrifying, featuring sawtoothed nightmarish creatures and hellish landscapes. It’s futuristic — showcasing printed versions of Murakami’s 10,000 pixelated flower NFTs and 3D Clone X avatars — as well as historically reverent, with a pair of wall-sized paintings that incorporate carp imagery from the Asian Art Museum’s ceramics collection. 

Although the exhibit’s title seems to demonize the very idea of the selfie, a pink sign in the museum’s exterior window glows winkingly with the words “weirdly loveable lovably weird,” nearly begging to be turned into an Instagram story. It might seem a bit contradictory, but expect to see a lot of Murakami on your feeds in the coming months.

Takashi Murakami’s “Unfamiliar People — Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego” is on display at the Asian Art Museum from Sept 15, 2023 to Feb 12, 2024.