Art History
The Superflat movement is a postmodern art movement founded by Takashi Murakami and influenced by forms of Japanese graphic art such as manga and anime. The term Superflat refers to the flattening of characters and forms and also to the emptiness of Japanese consumer culture. As a fairly new movement, what is considered Superflat is very loosely defined but works within this spectrum often have to do with consumerism and sexual fetishism of that which is considered cute or “kawaii.” Murakami believes that kawaii art emerged as a response by Japanese artists to World War II and the atomic bomb. He sees the cute innocence of kawaii culture as being a part of the American rewriting of the Japanese constitution following World War II, in which Japan was essentially limited to a nonaggressive policy and prohibited from using war power in anything but self-defense. This short essay will focus on the piece Army of Mushrooms by Takashi Murakami.
Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 and is internationally known as a contemporary artist. Working in both fine art and commercial media, he is credited with blurring the lines between and mixing high and low arts. As a young child he followed animation and manga, which in part explains his later development of the Superflat style. As he studied to become an artist, he became disillusioned with contemporary art of Japan, believing it to be too much of an appropriation of Western culture. Due to this, his earlier works are filled with social criticism and satire which while garnering attention, were not initially popular in Japan. His later Superflat style, which ‘flattens’ not only the visual surface of forms but also the field of high and low social classes was more successful in being widely accepted. With the idea of Superflat, Murakami takes ‘low’ artistic elements and turns them into ‘high’ art which he then turns around and repackages as ‘low’ consumer merchandise, effectively leveling the playing field between high and low markets, tastes and social classes.
As comments on the post-war Japan, many of Murakami’s pieces portray mushrooms, less-than-subtle nods toward the mushroom cloud produced by an atomic bomb. Army of Mushrooms is one of these pieces. As a work, its title suggest militaristic values, however the painting itself is far from war-like. The piece makes use of a sunny palette and small cute mushrooms with humanized features. The mushrooms are small and cute and look to pose no threat to anyone. This ties in with the idea of reduction of Japanese military power to a forcibly peaceful state and also with the idea of kawaii culture. With this in mind, Army of Mushrooms becomes an exploration of Japanese history and how contemporary Japanese culture has chosen to confront it.
In summary, Takashi Murakami is the founder of the Superflat movement. The Superflat movement emphasizes both visual and symbolic flatness, reducing figures down to two-dimensional forms and at the same time attempting to merge low and high art forms into one. Much of the Superflat movement has to do with ‘kawaii’ culture in Japan. Murakami sees kawaii as a response to World War II, after which Japanese was essentially stripped of its right to dissent through aggression. His art reflects this belief, often portraying cute characters with deeper meaning. Such is Army of Mushrooms, where the idea of a military force would be threatening were it not reduced to the laughably cute forms of humanized mushrooms.
