Superflat is a
postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
art movement
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...
, founded by the artist
Takashi Murakami
is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts as well as co ae ...
, which is influenced by
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
and
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
. However, superflat doesn't have an explicit definition because Takashi Murakami does not want to limit the movement, but rather leave room for it to grow and evolve over time.
Superflat is also the name of a 2000
art exhibition, curated by Murakami, that toured
West Hollywood
West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...
,
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
and
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
.
Description
"Superflat" is used by Murakami to refer to various flattened forms in Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture and fine arts, as well as the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture." Superflat has been embraced by American artists, who have created a hybrid called "
SoFlo Superflat
SoFlo Superflat describes an art genre started in Miami in the 1990s. It is an urban pop art movement in South Florida that combines super bright colors and ultra flat images. The subject matters are very diverse. It is an outcrop of the Japanese S ...
".
[
Murakami defines ''Superflat'' in broad terms, so the subject matter is very diverse. Some works explore the consumerism and sexual fetishism that is prevalent in post-war Japanese culture. This often includes ]lolicon
In Japanese popular culture, is a genre of fictional media in which young (or young-looking) girl characters appear in romantic or sexual contexts. The term, a portmanteau of the English phrase "Lolita complex", also refers to desire and a ...
art, which is parodied by works such as those by Henmaru Machino Henmaru Machino (町野 変丸 ''Machino Henmaru'', sometimes given as 'Hanmaru', born 1969, Aomori Prefecture) is a Japanese artist, described as the Magritte of the eromanga world, whose works prominently feature themes of bestiality, dysmorph ...
. These works are an exploration of otaku
is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in ''Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorativ ...
sexuality through grotesque and/or distorted images. Other works are more concerned with a fear of growing up. For example, Yoshitomo Nara's work often features playful graffiti on old Japanese ''ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
'' executed in a childish manner. And some works focus on the structure and underlying desires that comprise otaku and overall post-war Japanese culture. Murakami is influenced by directors such as Hideaki Anno
is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor. He is best known for creating the anime series ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' (1995)''.'' His style is defined by his postmodernist approach and the extensive portrayal of characters' thoughts and emotio ...
.
Superflat is not limited to contemporary art alone. Murakami cites older Japanese pieces as superflat as well, including Katsushika Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...
's "Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit
, also known as ''Rainstorm Beneath the Summit'', or sometimes ''Black Fuji'' (黒富士 ''Kurofuji'') is a woodcut print by the Japanese ukiyo-e master Hokusai (1760–1849). It is one of the most famous prints from his celebrated '' Thirty-six V ...
" (1830–32) as an example of superflat.
A subversive look at otakuism is not a defining factor of Kaikai Kiki's galleries; Bome, one of the most important artists involved with the first Superflat exhibition, is a famous otaku figure sculptor and his work based on existing bishoujo anime characters has been showcased in multiple galleries including a solo exhibition in the Kaikai Kiki Gallery. The artist Mr.
''Mister'', usually written in its contracted form ''Mr.'' or ''Mr'', is a commonly used English honorific for men without a higher honorific, or professional title, or any of various designations of office. The title 'Mr' derived from earlier ...
is a self-described lolicon and views his artwork to be not a cultural commentary but a portrayal of his own personal fantasies.[Chen, Aric (May 2007).]
Candy Man
". ''Hint Fashion Magazine''. Accessed 9 March 2009.
Artists
Superflat artists include Chiho Aoshima
is a Japanese pop artist and member of Takashi Murakami's Kaikai Kiki Collective. Aoshima graduated from the Department of Economics, Hosei University, Tokyo. She held a residency at Art Pace, San Antonio, United States in 2006.
Personal life
...
, Mahomi Kunikata, Sayuri Michima, Yoshitomo Nara
is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. His art work has been housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles Coun ...
, Aya Takano
is a Japanese painter, Superflat artist, manga artist, and science fiction essayist. Aya Takano is represented by Kaikai Kiki, the artistic production studio created in 2001 by Takashi Murakami.
Early life and influence
Takano was born in Sa ...
and Takashi Murakami. In addition, some animators within anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
and some manga artists
A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan.
Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist bef ...
have had their past and present work exhibited in Superflat exhibitions, especially Kōji Morimoto
is a Japanese anime director. Some of his works include being an animator in the '' Akira'' film; shorts in ''Robot Carnival'', ''Short Peace'', and ''The Animatrix''; and key animation in anime such as ''Kiki's Delivery Service'', ''City Hunte ...
, and the work of Hitoshi Tomizawa
is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his sci-fi series ''Alien Nine.''
Career
Tomizawa worked as an assistant to '' Baki the Grappler'' author Keisuke Itagaki, before publishing his first work as a professional manga artist with ...
, author of '' Alien 9'' and ''Milk Closet
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulati ...
''.
Origins
There are multiple factors that played a role for Murakami to come up with his Superflat claim. In his Manifesto, he describes “''Super flatness''” as an original concept of Japanese who have been completely Westernized, that simultaneously links the past with the present and the future.
The past, in this case, refers to art made during the Edo period in Japan, where Murakami finds his foremost inspiration in the works of Fine Art painters such as Kano Sansetsu, Ito Jakuchu
Ito may refer to:
Places
* Ito Island, an island of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
* Ito Airport, an airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
* Ito District, Wakayama, a district located in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan
* Itō, Shizuo ...
, Soga Shohaku and Katsushika Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...
. Murakami explains that his theory was born from a hypothesis created by art historian Nobuo Tsuji in his book ''The Lineage of Eccentricity''.
In his book, Tsuji critically analyses works from Edo period painters and explains how the picture controls the speed and course of its observer’s gaze, creating an interaction between the surface and the viewer with a zigzag motion. This is further elaborated in ''Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics'', a book that presents key examples of Murakami’s work alongside a selection of Japanese masterpieces arranged according to the concepts laid out by Tsuji himself. It is mentioned that the juxtaposition of foreground forms extending horizontally across broad compositions and two-dimensional surfaces is another feature that Murakami has adapted for his own theory and contemporary subject matter.
The particular sensibility of the gaze and inspiration from old masters is what Murakami continues to incorporate in his own works. An example of this is his painting called ''727'', a work made with acrylics on three panels. In the middle is his alter ego depicted, also known as ‘Mr. DOB’, riding a stylized wave that is a direct reference to Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the ...
his famous ''Great Wave off Kanagawa.'' The panels on which it was painted show a resemblance to the flat and often ‘blank’ backgrounds characterizing in Nihonga paintings and folding screens, illustrating features of Superflatness.
Another field within the arts that, according to both Murakami and Tsuji, is closely related to eccentricity of traditional Japanese art and also carries Superflat features, is animation. In his manifesto, Murakami takes Yoshinori Kanada
was an influential Japanese animator originally from Nara, Japan. He is best known for his popular 1984 work ''Birth'', one of the first (after Dallos) original video animations released in the market. Though he did not create many character des ...
as a prime example of an animator whose work contains a compositional dynamic that resembles that of the “eccentric” artists to a startling degree.
A connection can be made of modern-day animation back to twelfth- and thirteenth-century Japanese handscrolls, where the narrative is composed across multiple sheets of joined paper, read from right to left, providing the observer once again a two-dimensional ‘flat’ space and composition where the gaze leads the viewer through the story.
A different factor that played a role for the emergence of Superflatness was the bursting bubble of the Japanese economy in the 1990s’, where Japan was led into uncertain territory and a loss of its sense of security. Michael Darling explains that "''rabid consumerism and the slavish following of fads, especially in fashion, have further contributed to a culture of surfaces and superficiality, representing still another facet of the Superflat concept".'' Darling, 2001). He uses photography and fashion as further examples to illustrate Superflatness and the hype and high consumer demand of Japan.
See also
* '' My Lonesome Cowboy''
* ''Hiropon'' (sculpture)
* ''Nijikon
or , from the English "2D complex", is the affective perception that two-dimensional anime, manga, and light novel characters are more attractive visually, physically or emotionally than people from the real world. The term appeared in the earl ...
''
References
Bibliography
*Murakami, Takashi, ed. (2018). Lineage of Eccentrics; A Collaboration with Nobuo Tsuji and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston; MFA Publications. .
*
*
*
*
External links
Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
mdash;Takashi Murakami’s official site featuring Superflat artists
- o
blog.emilkerie.com
— essay by Hiroki Azuma
(born May 9, 1971) is a Japanese cultural critic, novelist, and philosopher. He is the co-founder and former director of Genron, an independent institute in Tokyo, Japan.
Biography
Azuma was born in Mitaka, Tokyo. Azuma received his PhD in ...
.
Plumbing the Depths of Superflatness
Inspired works from Superflat
Overthinking Superflat
{{westernart
Contemporary art movements
Anime and manga terminology
Japanese aesthetics