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Mr. Pointy

Four distinct motifs, each abstract, colorful, and cartoonish, float sequentially, one on top of the other, against a shiny, black background. One looks like an expanding galaxy. The top one, a figure, has a squat body and a pointy head and is grinning.
©2011 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin

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  • Four distinct motifs, each abstract, colorful, and cartoonish, float sequentially, one on top of the other, against a shiny, black background. One looks like an expanding galaxy. The top one, a figure, has a squat body and a pointy head and is grinning.

Date:

2011

Artist:

Takashi Murakami
Japanese, born 1962

About this artwork

Rising to prominence in the 1990s, Takashi Murakami skillfully mixes Japanese pop culture, animé, and cartoon aesthetics into a new form of global pop art. At once an artist and a businessman, his large-scale paintings and sculptures are as well known as his mass-produced trinkets and collaborations with Louis Vuitton. However, both practices disclose his persistent and tempered engagement with art-historical precedents set by Pop Art. In 2000 Murakami coined the term “superflat” to describe not only his art practice and that of his Japanese contemporaries but also a larger cultural shift toward the “extremely two-dimensional.” While this sensibility is most present in Japanese animé, Murakami asserts it is a worldwide phenomenon. According to Murakami’s own “Superflat Manifesto,” the phrase accounts for the way in which different layers of culture, especially high and low, “fuse into one.” Mr. Pointy embodies the concept of superflat. The character combines religious iconography taken from sources as diverse as Mayan culture, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Thousand-Armed Buddha (Kannon in Japanese) with a cartoon style. Mr. Pointy was devised by Murakami in 2003 and has since been repeatedly rendered in paintings, mass-market prints, and sculptures.

Status

On View, Gallery 292

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Takashi Murakami

Title

Mr. Pointy

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 2011

Medium

Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

350 × 247.4 cm (137 13/16 × 97 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection

Reference Number

2015.147

Copyright

©2011 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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