Quotes by Takashi Murakami - Page 1

I always have stress.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Stress
Always
Copy Quote
Like many other kids, I liked watching anime.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Kids
Anime
Other Kids
Copy Quote
I tried to teach myself to draw anime, but I was so bad.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Anime
Copy Quote
It's true that I pick up many ideas from different Japanese things.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Japanese
Copy Quote
If I have a certain opinion, I try to incorporate that into my work.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Certain
Opinion
Incorporate
Copy Quote
I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Immersed
Manga
Copy Quote
The theme my generation explored was the relationship between capitalism and art.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Relationship
Capitalism
My Generation
Theme
Between
Explored
Generation
Copy Quote
Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Figures
Influential
Minorities
Figure
Guess
Minority
Rather
Symbol
Copy Quote
New York City is still the art capital - every time I'm in New York, I'm thinking about competition.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Art
New York
Thinking
Copy Quote
The works I made at the start of my career rely on the themes of war, atomic power, and outer space.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Outer Space
Rely
Atomic
Outer
Themes
Copy Quote
In Japan, I focus mostly on sending messages through Twitter, trying to spread my minority way of thinking.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Japan
Messages
Spread
Minority
Mostly
Sending
Copy Quote
My company, Kaikai Kiki, is unique because it's an art business. I had to find out how to do this by myself.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Unique
Copy Quote
My mum and dad were a little like tiger parents. I hate that, but at the same time, I am a little bit proud.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Tiger
Copy Quote
I stopped worrying about competition in contemporary art. It feels a little bit more pure. That's where I am, one step back.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Competition
Contemporary
Contemporary Art
Feels
Little Bit
Pure
Step
Worrying
Copy Quote
I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Breeding
Cactus
Insects
Lotuses
Plant
Collection
Lotus
Copy Quote
I don't think it's an unnatural thing at all for my collaborations or projects to be seen as art but entertainment at the same time.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Entertainment
Projects
Unnatural
Seen
Collaborations
Same Time
Copy Quote
For children of my generation, anime was an escape from Japan's loser complex following World War II. Anime wasn't foreign. It was our own.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Anime
Following
Japan
Loser
My Generation
World War Ii
War World Children
Escape
World War
Copy Quote
In Japan, I am famous in certain special circles - mainly as someone who is trying to break down and enlighten the conventions of Japanese art.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Famous
Break
Certain
Circles
Conventions
Japan
Special
Down
Enlighten
Mainly
Copy Quote
I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Art
Kids
Thinking
Copy Quote
In the West, it's just a given that art exists in this high-class place. But in Japan, there's no high class. The minute you come out, you're low class.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Japan
Exists
Copy Quote
I grew up in a low-income area of Tokyo. Like most homes in Tokyo, ours was small. It was a free-standing, two-family rental duplex built 30 years earlier.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Low Income
Tokyo
Earlier
Homes
Ours
Copy Quote
Japanese people accept that art and commerce will be blended; and, in fact, they are surprised by the rigid and pretentious Western hierarchy of 'high art.'
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Commerce
Hierarchy
High Art
Pretentious
Western
Art People Will
Accept
Blended
Fact
Japanese
In Fact
Japanese People
Rigid
Surprised
Copy Quote
Every day, I have new ideas. It makes my brain tired, so I spend time taking care of company quality, finding new artists, and taking care of the young artists.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Quality
Brain
Company
Ideas
New Ideas
Tired
Artists
Finding
Spend
Taking
Copy Quote
My Miyoshi studio in Japan is located in the northern part of Saitama, which puts it in quite close proximity to Fukushima. As such, we can feel the effects of radiation.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Effects
Japan
Proximity
Radiation
Close Proximity
Located
Northern
Puts
Studio
Copy Quote
My father, Fukujuro, drove a cab and my mother, Itsuko, was a homemaker. My parents often took me to see Impressionist exhibits. At home, I would paint pictures in a similar style.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Cab
Homemaker
Paint
Home Mother Me
Home Me Father
Drove
Home Father Me
Impressionist
Copy Quote
The way I formed my studio and how I organize things actually came out of the model of the Japanese animation studio and the manga industry. The manga industry is gigantic in Japan.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Animation
Japan
Way
Copy Quote
My aesthetic sense was formed at a young age by what surrounded me: the narrow residential spaces of Japan and the mental escapes from those spaces that took the forms of manga and anime.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Space
Anime
Japan
Copy Quote
I'm very sad to be compared with Warhol and The Factory, because I have no drugs, you know. We have no drug culture in Japan! Maybe it's because our attitude toward labor is totally different.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Attitude
Drug
Japan
Copy Quote
I actually feel like the phrase 'big in Japan' is not appropriate for me. The reason is that there are more people who sympathize with my practice in America than there are domestically in Japan.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Appropriate
Japan
More People
Phrase
Sympathize
Copy Quote
I would like to live to 120, because conceptually, people can survive to 120. Every 20 years, it changes. So maybe, in the next 20 years people can go to space. I don’t know what the next revolution will be. I want to watch.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Space
People
Years
Copy Quote
I don't always enjoy curating, but I do believe it's part of my job. It's a good exercise for my brain, like warming up. Just focusing on my work would be so depressing! For me, curating is necessary - it's like physical training.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Depressing
Good Exercise
Work Good Believe
Work Good Brain
Focusing
Warming
Copy Quote
Manga uses Japanese traditional structures in how to teach the student and to transmit a very direct message. You learn from the teacher by watching from behind his back. The whole teacher-master thing is part of Asian culture, I think.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Teacher
Asian
Direct
Teach
Thinking
Traditional
Transmit
Behind
Japanese
Manga
Structures
Uses
Copy Quote
When I was little, my parents belonged to a cult, a big Buddhist sect called Soka Gakkai. I didn't have any particular sentiment for or against religion, but I did feel bad about my parents' poverty and how it made them depend on that cult.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Buddhist
Cult
Belonged
Depend
Sentiment
Copy Quote
I'm always looking for ways to connect myself with American people and that American feeling. I'm trying to pick up on the feeling of places, like the Los Angeles feeling or the New York feeling... Los Angeles is much better for me that way.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
New York
Feelings
People
Copy Quote
When I was making my debut as an artist, I felt that it was very important that I try to combine the background of my own culture, my people, and the country into the contemporary art world. So that's how I came up with the term 'superflat.'
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Art World
Contemporary
Contemporary Art
Country
Culture
Debut
Felt
Important
My Own
Term
Very
Background
Try
Own
Came
Combine
Making
Copy Quote
As a young artist in New York, I thought about postwar Japan - the consumer culture and the loose, deboned feeling prevalent in the character and animation culture. Mixing all those up in order to portray Japanese culture and society was my work.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
New York
Society
Animation
Artist
Character
Japan
Japanese Culture
Mixing
Order
Work Society Culture
Consumer
Feeling
Loose
Portray
York
Copy Quote
Galleries in the West have probably been looking for exoticism. That's the reason my paintings initially sold well, I think. And then once they started selling, people said my works were very detailed. They may have represented something Japanese to them.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
People
Thinking
West
Copy Quote
We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don't completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Art
Moments
Want
Copy Quote
In Japan, after having lost World War II, the hierarchy that used to exist in the society, from the rich to the poor, has been flattened, especially by the winners, by Americans. As a Japanese artist debuting in America, I really had to bring that kind of theme into the work.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Hierarchy
Japan
Theme
World War Ii
Flattened
Winners
World War
Copy Quote
My parents came from the Kyushu Island in the Southern part of Japan to find work in Tokyo. So we could only afford to live downtown, in a low-income area. It was just by the river, and whenever a typhoon came around, we were under water up to, like, here. That's the kind of place we lived in.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Downtown
Japan
Low Income
Tokyo
Afford
Island
River
Copy Quote
My own belief is that rather than getting involved in trying to change the reality of social-political things, creators can be involved in and express in different ways and be meaningful in different ways, so for me, it's important to leave messages to people of the future and to be engaged with the people now.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Belief
Different Ways
Engaged
Involved
Meaningful
Messages
Creators
Express
Copy Quote
When I was little, I guess I was just an ordinary kid. But then things changed when I was in junior high. You know, kids that become geeks become one because of something. Like, they aren't good at sports, or girls don't like them. I, too, for some reason, got into things like science fiction and, well, especially science fiction as an escape.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Junior High
Ordinary
Science Fiction
Escape
Geeks
Junior
Copy Quote
Contemporary art and manga - what is the same about them? Nothing, right? The manga industry has a lot of talented people, but contemporary art works on more of a solitary model. No one embarks on collaboration in contemporary art in order to make money. But in the manga world, everyone is invested in collaboration. The most important point is that the manga industry constantly encourages new creations and creators.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Art
Order
People
Copy Quote
The concept of minimalism is to relax. Like a Zen monk in training, it is something that brings equilibrium to the heart. I don't necessarily think it has any problems, but if I were to force myself to name one, I would say that since the minimalist feeling already includes its own universe, I think it might kill the drive that we would otherwise have to commit the physically impossible and attempt to travel into outer space.
Takashi Murakami / Contemporary Artist
Heart
Names
Thinking
Copy Quote

Top Authors

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist
Wednesday, May 25, 1803
Thursday, Apr 27, 1882
Benjamin Franklin
Founding Father Of The United States
Sunday, Jan 17, 1706
Saturday, Apr 17, 1790
Thomas Aquinas
Priest
Tuesday, Jan 28, 1225
Wednesday, Mar 07, 1274
Aristotle
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Soren Kierkegaard
Philosopher
Wednesday, May 05, 1813
Sunday, Nov 11, 1855
George Carlin
Comedian
Wednesday, May 12, 1937
Sunday, Jun 22, 2008
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poet
Wednesday, Oct 21, 1772
Friday, Jul 25, 1834
Edgar Allan Poe
Author
Thursday, Jan 19, 1809
Sunday, Oct 07, 1849
John Keats
Poet
Saturday, Oct 31, 1795
Friday, Feb 23, 1821
Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
H. L. Mencken
Journalist
Sunday, Sep 12, 1880
Sunday, Jan 29, 1956
Deepak Chopra
Author
Wednesday, Oct 22, 1947
Leonardo Da Vinci
Painter
Thursday, Apr 15, 1452
Friday, May 02, 1519
Rodney Dangerfield
Comedian
Tuesday, Nov 22, 1921
Tuesday, Oct 05, 2004
Napoleon Hill
Author
Friday, Oct 26, 1883
Sunday, Nov 08, 1970

View All Authors

Takashi Murakami Quotes - Page 1

App & Tools

Related Contemporary Artist Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Contemporary Artist Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page