Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist who works in both fine arts and commercial arts media. He is the founder of the art production and artist management company Kaikai Kiki. He is known for participating in collaborations and has worked with the fashion brand Louis Vuitton on the design of physical luxury goods and RTFKT for a non-fungible token (NFT).

Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, Japan, where he still lives today. He has several higher education degrees in art, specifically nihonga (traditional Japanese painting). He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees as well as his PhD from Tokyo University of the Arts. While studying art in college, Murakami focused on producing animated films and creating ready-made pieces of art. He was also awarded the Asian Cultural Council grant to study art in New York City for one year after which he returned to Japan.

In 1996, Murakami established the Hiropon Factory (now known as Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd) as a company and physical space for artists to produce artwork. During this first year of his company, he created his iconic Mr. DOB character, a blue mouse-looking anime-like character that regularly appears in his artwork. Murakami expanded to a second location within a year, and by 1998, the company had an art studio in New York City.

Murakami curated an art exhibition called Superflat in 2000 that was organized to showcase works of art that are representative of his theory of art by the same name. The exhibition was popular, and the following year, it was taken on tour to other major cities.

Murakami was creating artwork and characters in a 2D format that were colorful and inspired by anime and cartoons. In 2002, he began collaborating with major fashion designers, such as Marc Jacobs, to redesign the Louis Vuitton monogram.

He continued showcasing art exhibitions throughout the world, and in 2007, Murakami started a world tour with his retrospective exhibition MURAKAMI, which ended in 2009. Other notable shows of Murakami's career thus far include one in the Palace of Versailles in 2010, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2015, shows in Moscow, Chicago, and Boston in 2017, a show at Tai Kwun museum in Hong Kong in 2019, and his solo exhibition in KYOCERA Museum of Art in Kyoto in 2024.

In 2020, Murakami collaborated with design studio RTFKT to release a collection of 3D profile pictures in the form of NFTs called Clone X. The launch was a success and quickly sold out.

Murakami then announced that he was releasing another NFT collection called Murakami.Flowers, which are inspired by his well-known style of cartoon flowers. The collection was nearing release in 2021, with the NFTs getting bids of more than $250,000. Murakami paused the project until 2022, and when he finally released this NFT collection, it was during a major downturn in the cryptocurrency market after crypto derivatives exchange FTX collapsed. The NFTs sold for a significantly lower amount, with some individual NFTs in this collection valued at approximately USD$700 as of January 2024.

In 2022, Murakami released another NFT collection called Lucky Cat Coin Bank. The collection is different NFTs that are pixelated versions of the popular Japanese Maneki-neko figurine, a cat that is known to bring good luck.