"[Takashi] Murakami's retrospective is a clear indication of what results from this close marriage between art and consumerism: a castrated art -- one completely devoid of critical content. Murakami's work is part of a growing movement of Japanese pop art, with Murakami frequently referred to as Japan's Andy Warhol.
Superficially, the two artists seem to have a lot in common: Both use imagery appropriated from popular culture, both employ repetition of imagery as a common pictorial motif. Perhaps most important, neither artist actually executes their own artworks, instead employing a 'factory' of assistants to manufacture their paintings and prints, with the artist only touching the finished work to sign it.
Yet, to play up this comparison is to undervalue an important distinction between the two: Warhol, at least in his early work, criticized mass imagery even as he appropriated it. Murakami's work lacks even a whiff of subversiveness; it remains, at its core, a celebration of banality."
-(Super)flat Pop-
