Contemporary Japanese art master Takashi Murakami, in addition to focusing on creating new works, also personally organizes solo exhibitions around the world and supervises the production of merchandise. You may wonder why Murakami, whose paintings can fetch tens of millions or even hundreds of millions at auctions, doesn’t just focus on creating and instead spends valuable time on handling merchandise. To this question, Murakami himself has personally provided an answer.
The official social media platform of the Taiwan “Yoshitomo Nara Special Exhibition” recently shared the master’s reasons for persisting in making peripheral products. Nara Yoshitomo believes that he does not know if people who buy his works at high prices truly like his creations. He mentioned that when he was young and unknown, his paintings were quite cheap, affordable to the general public, and those who truly liked him would buy his works at the gallery. However, now that his works have become popular, wealthy people buy them because they are trendy, causing the prices to rise.
Naoki Takizawa believes that people who truly love his work cannot afford it because of the high prices. In order to allow these true fans who love “Naoki Takizawa’s work” more than he does himself to own his creations, he hopes everyone can have Naoki Takizawa’s creations through peripheral products.
版画制作中。 pic.twitter.com/xMqquGx19f
— yoshitomo nara, the washing hands man (@michinara3) June 15, 2021
試作台湾ジャージ！いろいろと改良点あり！発売はまだまだ先になりそうです😅 pic.twitter.com/olAPGr7G2S
— yoshitomo nara, the washing hands man (@michinara3) May 27, 2021
It is this group of fans who love and cherish, which makes the master willing to spend time on peripheral products. Of course, the master also has his own insistence on the production of products. Yoshitomo Nara said that he will only make products that he would use and want to use, and will personally design and even supervise the sample making, in order to make products that he is satisfied with!
