村上隆のインスタグラム(takashipom) - 8月13日 06時10分

Graffiti Zombies in TOKYO

We started showing MADSAKI last year with a very well-received solo show, and we held one again this year, which also proved hugely popular. I love graffiti (as I have mentioned in my essay on MADSAKI’s show earlier) and for the past three years or so, I have been presenting exhibitions at my relatively small gallery called Hidari Zingaro in Nakano by inviting graffiti artists from outside Japan. This is because while I have always liked graffiti, I have felt that there was something off about Japanese graffiti. It felt, say, like an anime character drawn by a Westerner who loves Japanese anime; something superficially similar yet fundamentally different. I thought that a visual form can’t have substance on its own without the accompanying reality.
With MADSAKI’s work, too, at first I found it light in substance, like an illustration parody that is quintessentially Japanese, but I bought a painting anyway hearing that he was a friend of Rei, my studio assistant in NY at the time. It was a Matisse rip-off. Even though MADSAKI was feigning logic, calling the work part of Wannabe series or some such, it felt light all the same. But I thought, why not?
When I hang the piece for the first time on a white wall on the occasion of my collection show at the Yokohama Museum of Art, however, it wasn’t half bad. It was received quite well, in fact, and I heard multiple comments and questions: “I like that pseudo-Matisse,” and “How much did it cost?” In person, MADSAKI is extremely frank and personable, so after he told me various anecdotes about his past, I got interested enough to plan his show at my gallery. The first one was on the said Wannabe series, so it was a continuation on the rip-off theme. But I thought it boring for him to just rip off masterpieces, so I scrolled through his Instagram posts for clues, and saw that he was posting famous scenes from the American ‘80s films, such as Beverley Hills Cop, Scarface, and Yoda from Star Wars. In addition, he was frequently posting the photos of his indisputably good-looking wife, so I suggested that he paint his wife if he likes her so much, →to be continued

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