Artsy Fartsy: Murakami at MOCA

Seizure inducing wall paper, gazing green "jelly fish" eyeballs, walls filled with canvas the size of a short bus, bursting with psychedelic images, melting with details so that even the most disturbed ADHD in addition to the posh Angelinos could be amused.

Fine art meets pop culture at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles, as internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is exhibited in a major retrospective that runs through Feb. 11, 2008.

The exhibition features more than 90 works in various media including paintings, sculptures, film and massive installations, on estanding 23 ft. tall.

Musuem goers are greeted by two life-sized manga figures. Thier faces are wide-eyed and innocent like characters from Pokemon except, the girl is skipping rope made of milk squeezed from her Pamela Anderson-sized breasts and the well-endowed boy is weilding a lasso made of semen from his erect penis. Two painting appropriately titled Milk and Cream accompany the figures.

Many of Murakami's pieces intermingle what are usually considered childlike images with adult subject matter. Most of his work has a deeper meaning that goes unnoticed at first glance. For example, four paintings of skulls in hot pink, sky blue, red and green seem generic but then you read the excerpt or look closer and find that they are actually mushroom clouds morphing into skulls symbolizing the death and destruction brought on by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, what really sets this exhibition apart are the huge installation pieces. The two largest works are 23 and 18 1/2 ft. tall and both are rife with Buddist references are symbolism.

Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962, earned his PhD in fine art in 1993 and invented the phrase "POKU." POKU is a phrase combining the words pop art and otaku (which is used to describe fans of anime and manga). Overall he is known for combining the brightness of pop art and the "superflat" style found in anime all with the imaginary qualities of psychedelic surrealism.