“SUPERFLAT” is inspired by contemporary artist Takashi Murakami’s recent Superflat movement. Can you tell us more?
Superflat was initiated by acclaimed Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami in 2000. According to Murakami, Superflat began as a search, in the context of globalization and a post-war Japan, for Japanese identity and the meaning of art in Japan. He draws from Japanese art history and the current Japanese creative scene to expose the postmodern Japanese consciousness, muted in the Japanese arts scene previously but revealed in subcultural art forms like manga narratives. Through Superflat, he introduced a new wave of Japanese artists to an international audience through various collaborations.
And “SUPERFLAT” is a story about Mr Sweet. Tell us more about him.
Mr Sweet is a young, androgynous boy in search of a lost memory in a realm known as the mushroom cosmos. To fill in more details, Mr Sweet is one who lives side by side with quiet pain and is nourished by this pain, which I see as an elegant expression of life.
Well, how do you personally relate to him?
I do not consider him my alter-ego. He is a channel of expression to transform unknown impulses into known consciousness, he can be a vessel of dreams and fantasy and he can be a common link between my audience and me—a plane that can connect us from two ends of the communication formula.
Let’s go on to the story in the exhibition. What is this episode about?
This episode is the one that communicates my idea of contemporary human history—our history as it unfolds—in the most direct manner. For instance, I explicitly write “Marshall McLuhan’s global village is no more” in the main painting for this show and made overt reference to the current Superflat movement in my title. I no longer hide my thoughts through fictional devices but instead expose our human narrative as narrative.
