For its participation in Asia Now, Perrotin presents a selection of works by Takashi Murakami, Shin Murata and Aso Kojima.
Murakami's ink calligraphies on used coffee filters take up his aesthetic concerns in an innovative form. The artist, whose mother is passionateabout calligraphy, has studied the practice since the age of five.
Like these original calligraphies, Murakami's works in the Ensō series have strong poetic and Zen significance: the Enso, a freehand circle, is painted with a brush by followers of Zen as a form of spiritual practice and free movement.
For the first time in Europe, Perrotin will present a series of ceramics by Murakami made in collaboration with Shin Murata, as well as Aso Kojima'sceramics accompanied by boxes decorated with Murakami's drawings.
The collaboration between Murakami and Murata revisits the artist Rosanjin, whom Murakami admires immensely. Conceived by Murakamiand produced by Murata, the works are Honkadori (Japanese practice of adaptation or copy) of the pots that Rosanjin once copied from Shigaraki and Oribe wares. They challenge the boundary between original and copy, and question the notion of what it means to make a copy of aconcept.
For his part, Aso Kojima breaks away from the traditional market principles of crafts and adopts an artist's perspective to explore his own unique world of ceramics from a more liberal standpoint. Kojima's unique pottery methods combine respect for tradition with the principles of improvisation and experimentation, resulting in a body of work inspired by his passion for nature and sustainable living.
'For the past fifteen years, I have been involved with a number of contemporary Japanese ceramicists associated with the seikatsu kōgei movement, the craft of everyday objects, organising their exhibitions, financially supporting their production and collecting their work. Around 2005, whenI first became interested in and acquired ceramics, seikatsu kōgei was inits heyday, and the artists and their representatives seemed free and optimistic.' – Takashi Murakami
In addition to his successful artistic career, Murakami has established a reputation as a collector, curator, producer and gallery owner, with a particular interest in ceramic art. Murakami's passion for ceramic art has ledhim to build a private collection of more than 30,000 objects, regularlyloaned for museum exhibitions. In 2020, he opened the ceramic store 'Tonari no Murata' in Kyoto in collaboration with Shin Murata, followed bythe antique store 'Tonari no Totoya,' with the aim of creating a second-hand market for contemporary ceramic art.
In 2021, the exhibition GEIBI KAKUSHIN ('Aesthetic Innovation in Japanese Ceramic Art') at Perrotin Paris presented a whole generationof ceramic artists for the first time outside Japan.
Aso Kojima was born in Nagano in 1978. Living completely self-sufficiently with his family in the countryside, Kojima is a self-taught ceramicistwho lives by the rhythm and routine of making his ceramics. This approachgives him a vitality unmatched by other artists in this discipline. His skepticism of capitalism and contemporary society emerged in his youth andled him to favour the rural lifestyle that is his today.
Born in Kyoto in 1970, Shin Murata graduated from the ceramics department of Kyoto Seika University. He currently lives on the outskirts of Kyotowith his family. Following his studies, he established his own studio in1998, devoting himself to the practice of ceramics and its mythicalculture. In 2013, he traveled to the Muan district of Korea to rediscoverthe roots of Japanese pottery. There he built a kiln to make objects fromthe local clay, which is of exceptional quality. Like Murakami, Murata isstrongly influenced by Rosanjin's imprint on art in general and the art ofliving in particular.
Born in Tokyo in 1962, Takashi Murakami is the originator of Superflat theory, which reconstructs Japanese traditional paintings and the origin ofJapanese contemporary art through visual premises of anime and manga.Murakami's cultural theory not only deconstructs the highbrow/lowbrowhierarchy, but critically illustrates the post-World War II Japanese psychology, establishing a discourse unique to Japan in the increasingly globalised art scene. The artist continues to attract a wide-ranging audiencebeyond contemporary art through his multifaceted activities including hiscollaborations with Louis Vuitton, Kanye West and Drake, as well as hisfocuses on street culture and contemporary ceramics.
The final instalment of his Superflat trilogy of curated exhibitions, Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture (New York, 2005), was awarded 'The Best Thematic Museum Show in New York by AICA that year'.
Since his first retrospective, ©MURAKAMI (2007–2009), Murakami has held major solo exhibitions around the world, including at the Palace ofVersailles (2010), Al Riwaq Exhibition Hall (Doha, 2012), the Mori ArtMuseum (Tokyo, 2015), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2017) and Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2019). In 2021 he collaborated withRTFKT on their NFT project, Clone X, before releasing his own NFT work,Murakami.Flowers, in 2022.
Perrotin represents these artists: