Takashi Murakami: New Paintings

Takashi Murakami: New Paintings at Gagosian Gallery, London. "...The centerpiece of Murakami's compact exhibition is a vast and intricate five-panel painting, which possesses the intensity of such master works as Tan Tan Bo Puking – a.k.a. Gero Tan (2002). If the jaunty toons Kaikai and Kiki have come to be seen as avatars of the opposing aspects of Murakami's own character, then this immense and ambitious work, jostling with Kaikais and Kikis of every size, shape, and humor, can be interpreted to be his ultimate self-portrait, predicated on an identity that is very much of our time — culturally specific yet ambivalent, mercurial, and multiplicitous."