Louis Vuitton / Takashi Murakami

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Louis Vuitton. Fifth Avenue, New York. 

Marc Jacobs / Andy Warhol

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Marc Jacobs. By Glenn O'Brien. Interview. June / July 2008. 

excerpted text:

"His collaborations with Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, and Richard Prince have shaken things up in both the fashion and art worlds. Not to mention advertising that looks like art and boutiques that feel like clubs. Andy Warhol used to talk about the best art being business art. And it would be hard to find someone who has done more to apply to an artist's thinking of running a creative big business than Marc Jacobs." (Glenn O'Brien)

"It's not my fault! I just have interests outside the superficial world of fashion" (Marc Jacobs)

"I started to thinking in romantic terms, and I always thought back to the time of Schiaparelli and Chanel and Cocteau, when all these creative people seemed to be doing things together. They where influenced by Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali, and fashion and art had a chance, you know?" (Marc Jacobs)

"And what I wanted to do, in the same way as Serge [Gainsbourg] had done, was deface it. The way that Duchamp had done with L.H.O.O.Q., by putting this moustache on [the Mona Lisa] and making it something hipper, a little bit anarchic, and just cooler". 

"Takashi was so pleased with what we had done that he then had a show at Marianne Boesky Gallery where he showed his paintings, which were inspired by the work that we had done together. He had an actual art show of work that he had done after seeing the fashion show". 

"Whether you like it or not, there's a validity to it. For all the critics who made fun of the installation of a Vuitton shop within Takashi's MOCA exhibition...I saw it like Martin Kippenberger's subway grate, you know? It Challenged this sort of categorizing. Like, what is teh art here? Is it what's on the bag? Is it the action of buying the bag - that's the art? Is it watching the people buying the art? Because it's installed in an exhibition in a museum, it it some kind of conceptual performance piece? It operates on so many levels that it's hard to categorize." (Marc Jacobs)

Murakami / Louis Vuitton

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Icone - Monogramouflage, Louis Vuitton by Takashi Murakami. L'Officiel. June 2008. 

1 2 3 4, art is at your Gap store

1 2 3 4, art is at your Gap store. The Star. By Stephen Marche, 05.24.08.
excerpted text:

"The Gap's new campaign is only a mainstream version of what Louis Vuitton has been doing for years, using artists as marketing devices. In 2005, LV hired Vanessa Beecroft to stage a performance art piece at the opening of a store on the Champs Elysée – she placed nude models on the shelves. The great Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has designed window displays for them. The most startling room in the new Takashi Murakami show in Brooklyn is the Louis Vuitton boutique right in the middle of the museum. It sells handbags he designed, drawing no distinction between his artworks and commercial products." 

"This is all cheeky and wonderful from the point of view of the corporation, but in what position does it leave the artist? It's not just that art has become suffused with money – a practice market for those who love markets so much they want to spend their recreation hours buying and selling. Art has always had to deal with commerce. The difference is that artists are now aspiring to be the CEOs of their work, as conceptualizers, organizers, synthesists, and packagers of other people's labour. Cai Guo-Qiang, the great Chinese gunpowder artist specializes in works that are so large they require teams to construct or perform. Damien Hirst conceived of a skull covered in diamonds, so he hired Bond St. jewellers to make one. Hirst gave the piece its name, For the Love of God, he set the price ($100 million) and he sold it on to a consortium. Conceiving and naming and selling are his jobs, not the business of fabrication. Beauty, like everything else, has been outsourced."

"In the realms of both luxury goods and art, the whole notion of the hand-made has become quaint, an old-fashioned notion like dressing for dinner or saving yourself for marriage. Murakami has argued that the idea of authenticity in art, and the lines it draws between art and design, original and fake, are Western constructs, destined to lose place in an increasingly globalized art world. That may well be true, but there are Western processes at work, as well, notably the triumph of consumer capitalism and the reduction of all things to cash value."

"There's a nearly perfect analogue to the current condition of art and commerce in one of the West's oldest myths, the story of Erisichthon from Ovid's Metamorphoses. As punishment for destroying a sacred grove of trees, Erisichthon is cursed by the gods with a terrible affliction: Famine is put in his belly. The more he eats the more he wants to eat. He begins to sell off all his possessions for food, including his daughter. Neptune has granted her the ability to change shapes at will. So Erisichthon sells her as a bull or a beautiful deer and she transforms back into herself and returns to her father to be sold again. She finds herself conjured into beauties in order to feed an insatiable hunger. Just so: The artist in his or her many varied transformations feeds the endless consumption which no glut can sate. No amount of diamond skulls or cherry-blossom handbags or Gap T-shirts will fill our inner, endless hunger for things and more things. Erisichthon can't save himself from his hunger, no matter how often he sells his daughter. In the end he eats his own guts. The myth doesn't say what happens to his daughter."

Louis Vuitton sales don't suffer in downturn

Louis Vuitton sales don't suffer in downturn. San Fransisco Chronicla.By Al Saracevic, Suzanne Herel, Victoria Colliver, Ilana DeBare and Steve Corder.05.25.08.
excerpted text:

"This is a very relevant question today. If you look at what's been disclosed over the last several months by the high-end department stores, and you see their results, there are some challenges clearly in the luxury industry. Some areas in the U.S. seem to be a little bit more challenging than others. But with respect to Vuitton, so far this year has been in double-digit growth. We're continuing with our investment plans as we have laid them out last year. We're not stopping." (Daniel Lalonde, President and Chief Executive Officer of Louis Vuitton North America)

"I'd point out three in particular. We've had a very successful collaboration with (American artist) Richard Prince. These bags are still in our stores. They go from about $2,000 to $5,000. It's a one-shot, meaning it will come in the network, we'll sell them all and it goes away." (Daniel Lalonde, President and Chief Executive Officer of Louis Vuitton North America)

"There's another one in that same vein that is a collaboration with (Japanese artist) Takashi Murakami. Marc Jacobs and Takashi designed a pattern for Vuitton which is based on the monogram, but it's very unique and it's called Monogramoflage. This is not in the stores yet. (It will be available June 15.)" (Daniel Lalonde, President and Chief Executive Officer of Louis Vuitton North America)

Part 1, Contemporary Art / Phillips de Pury & Company

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Part 1 Contemporary Art. Phillip de Pury & Company. New York.  May 15, 2008. 

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Amphotericin B, 1993, Damien Hirst. 

Gloss household paint on canvas. Estimate $3,000,000-4,000,00. Sold for $3.177,000.

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Superflat Monogram, 2004. Takashi Murakami. 

Acrylic on canvas mounted on board. Estimate $700,000-900,000. Sold for $724,200.

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Gun, 1981-1982. Andy Warhol.

Synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas. Estimate $400,000-600,000. Unsold. 

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Untitled (Fallen Angel), 1981.Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Acrylic and oilstick on canvas. Estimate $8,000,000-12,000,000. Sold for $11,241,000.

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Jime Beam - Caboose, 1986. Jeff Koons. 

Stainless steel and bourbon. Estimate $1,200,000-1,800,000. Sold for $1,385,000.

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Untitles aaaa, 1992. Damien Hirst.

Cardboard boxes, plastic and glass drug bottles.Estimate $800,000-1,200,000. Unsold.

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Beautiful Androgynous Hermaphrodite Painting, 2005. Damien Hirst.

Gloss household paint on canvas. Estimate $400,000-600,000. Sold for $481,000.

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Untitled, 1987. Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Acrylic oilstick on color copy collage on canvas. Estimate $2,000,000-3,000,000. Sold for $2,281,000.

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New Shelton Wet/Dry 10 Gallon, 1981-1986. Jeff Koons.

Vacuum cleaner, neon fluorescent tubes in plexiglass vitrine. Estimate $1,500,000-2,000,000. Sold for $2,673,000.

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Posterity - The Holy Place, 2006. Damien Hirst

Butterflies and gloss household paint on canvas. Estimate $1,000,000-1,500,000. Sold for $1,441,000.

Murakami

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Murakami / Brooklyn Museum. Billboard on Houston Street, New York. 

Louis Vuitton / Plesner

Knock it Off, Vuitton Says. New York Post. 05.06.08.
excerpted text:

Louis Vuitton products are illegally copied all over the world. Now Vuitton is battling a Belgian art student who's allegedly knocking off a Vuitton handbag that was a collaboration between Marc Jacobs and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. Nadia Plesner, a painter working with Designers for Darfur, depicted a Darfurian child holding a bag resembling the Vuitton one.

"She used the accessories to show that this is what the world is paying attention to," (Malcolm Harris, creator of Designers for Darfur)

"Plesner sells the images on posters and shirts, with the money going to the charity. But in February, Vuitton sent her a cease-and-desist letter stating: 'We cannot help noticing that the design of [your] product includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on LV's intellectual property rights.' Plesner continued and has now been smacked with a lawsuit. 'I stand up for my artistic freedom to express my view of the world . . . without restrictions,' "

Takashi Murakami / Karl Lagerfeld / Carine Roitfeld

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Time 100. Takashi Murakami / Karl Lagerfeld / Carine Roitfeld. Time. 05.12 .08. 

excerpted text:

"Our collaboration has produced a lot of works and has been a huge influence and inspiration to many. It has been and continues to be a monumental marriage of art and commerce. The ultimate crossover—one for both the fashion and art history books. The best part is that it continues, it grows, it morphs and still excites. Our efforts have come full circle. And I get to keep playing this game of catch ball with a great artist—and friend."(Marc Jacobs on Takasi Murakami)

"Now, through his work, fashion originates from the street, the media—anywhere. This has resulted in exciting collections that are provocative and sensual. His unrelenting experimentation in fashion, art and photography offers us endless possibilities yet is always grounded and relevant." (Zaha Hadid on Karl Lagerfeld)

"With time I discovered that we shared a few principles: a preference for the "now" rather than the "new," a preference for imperfection rather than so-called good taste and an attitude driven by intuition rather than reason. Most of all, she has an innate ability to mix street culture and society, always avoiding the caricatures that can define both worlds and always recognizing the mix of both worlds as the only catalyst of energy and creativity." (Hedi Slimane on Carine Roitfeld)

Takashi Murakami

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Takashi Murakami. Oval Buddah / New Paintings. 

Takashi Murakami / Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol. Takashi Murakami. Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery. 04.03-05.24.08.

Infantile Capitalism

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Infantile Captalism. The Economist. April 19-25, 2008. 

excerpted text:

"At the centre of Takashi Murakami's new exhibition is a shop. Even Andy Warhol never went that far

"Among the many rooms that make up this grand retrospective of the work of Takashi Murakami, Japan's best-known contemporary artist, one is especially provocative. It is not the gallery with the wide-eyed cartoon-like figures in bizarrely erotic poses. Nor is it the atrium, with its towering sculpture of a colourfully grotesque, pointy-headed alien, surrounded by adorable marshmallow-like sentries. The biggest buzz is about the space right in the centre of the Brooklyn Museum's 18,500 square-foot (1,700 square-metre) show: a fully operational Louis Vuitton shop, where visitors can buy their very own luxury handbag covered in Mr Murakami's playful designs for upwards of $650." 

"This approach to art is particularly Japanese, argues Mr Murakami. Discriminating between fine art and popular merchandise, or individual genius and learned craft, is a Western preoccupation. Trained in traditional Japanese art, Mr Murakami coined the term 'Superflat' for his theory about the similarities between the formal, decorative flatness of Japanese painting and the shallow, glossed fantasies of popular Japanese cartoons. It also recognises the lack of distinction between high and low in Japanese art. To others his art is known as the school of 'infantile capitalism'."

"Having it both ways is typical of Mr Murakami, who has managed to create an intellectual framework that lets him do and sell whatever he wants. Perhaps the best thing you can say about it is that his unbridled embrace of commercialism seems more honest than cynical."

Takashi Murakami's Smog of Luxury

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Takashi Murakami's Smog of Luxury. R.C. Baker. Village Voice. 04.15.08.

excerpted text:

"When he was a child, Takashi Murakami's mother used to tell him: 'Takashi, you are very lucky. If Kokura had not been cloudy, you wouldn't be here today.' On August 9, 1945, she'd been a kid herself, living in the city that the U.S. had targeted for its second atomic-bomb attack on Japan. Because of bad weather, she and thousands of others were spared, and Nagasaki, with a small patch of blue in its overcast skies, was incinerated instead. Fate doesn't get much more capricious than that. Perhaps Murakami, a globe-trotting artist, curator, and theorist, feels he's been living on borrowed time since before he was born, in 1962. This might explain his varied (at times, frenzied) output of paintings, sculptures, animation, and luxury goods, all on view in this Brooklyn Museum retrospective."

"Having sold miniature versions of his sculptures as "snack toys," Murakami has bested even Warhol in the ancillary-merch sweepstakes—which brings us to the Louis Vuitton shop, installed as part of the show, blunt as a torpedo amidships. After taking in the chromatic amplitude and rarefied surfaces of the sculptures and paintings, the 'Jellyfish Eye'–patterned bags and white-clad salesfolk feel beside the point, but these ostentatious items may actually be the heart of the show. As Scott Rothkopf's fascinating catalog essay points out, Murakami's career is a veritable case study of art-world conflicts of interest, because "his activities as a curator and critic function as a shrewd marketing device. By framing and advancing a new 'movement' of sorts, he has gained for his cohorts significant traction in both foreign intellectual and commercial markets." For example, Murakami curated the hugely successful 'Little Boy' show at the Japan Society in 2005, presenting himself and the artists he represents through his company, KaiKai Kiki, as exemplars of a new Japanese avant-garde. He then convinced Yale to publish a catalog laden with his own essays. So peddling exclusive accessories becomes just another tentacle in Murakami's evolving marketing organism. Andy must be bowing his head in admiration."

"As with Warhol, the best stuff here is surprising, gorgeously executed, and darkly alluring. The 11-foot-square canvas The World of Sphere (2003) features more chirpy flowers and the usual bulbous creatures, one with hula-hoop halos spinning like centrifuges around its pointy head. A miasma of Louis Vuitton logos rises like swamp gas in the background, a smog of luxury." 

Hitting the Vuitton Murakami Shop at the Brooklyn Museum

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Hitting the Vuitton Murakami Shop at the Brooklyn Museum. By Lynn Yeager. Village Voice. 04.15.08. 

excerpted text:

" In the end, I went down to Canal Street, the same ratty Canal Street that Vuitton thought was so witty to make fun of. And there I found a wonderful fake flowered satchel for $35, which I thought a cool guy like Murakami would probably get a kick out of, since the nameless third-world artisan who made it added some flourishes that LV hadn't thought of, like silver faux-snakeskin trim and mirror studs. But it turns out I am wrong about Murakami, as I am about so many things. A wall text at the museum announces that 'the concept of copyright itself holds an exalted position within Murakami's practice, rooted in the acknowledgement of his work as simultaneously interweaving deeply personal expression, high art, mass culture and commerce.'"

" Not for sale? Isn't this a store? I skulk away and eavesdrop on another White Suiter who is explaining to a well-heeled customer that the three canvases on the wall, all printed with LVs, are in fact up for grabs, at around $6,000 for three, though the price varies according to whether the canvases are signed, or bear a particular number, or some such. "It's the same denim that Vuitton uses for their clothes," the salesman says reverently, and I want to yell: 'So?'"

Is the art world still in fashion?

"Is the art world still fashion?". Vanessa Friedman. Financial Times. 03.15.08.

excerpted text:

"Now, on the surface, this might not strike a layperson as strange. Aren't artists all about their art? And aren't fashion people supposed to look good? Well, yes, but when Ms Lambert started her list back in 1940 there had been a conscious decision to exclude fashion people due to the fact that they have a clear advantage over others thanks to their levels of access and experience. This is doubly true when it comes to models, who not only have access and experience but youth and the genetic lottery on their side, and whose professional success is predicated on their ability to wear anything and make it look fabulous. Yet suddenly an exception had been made, and the top three best-dressed women (Agyness Deyn, Kate Moss, and Natalia Vodianova) were - yes - models, and they squished those painters and photographers and performance artists right out of the picture.

Surprising, really, when you consider that, ever since the millennium, fashion has been enjoying a love affair with the art world not seen since Elsa Schiaparelli got up close and personal with the surrealists. At Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs has made a quasi-fetish out of collaborating with artists such as Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse and Richard Prince; fashion brands vie to underwrite the big art parties of the year, such as the Serpentine's Summer gala; and artists such as Sam Taylor-Wood and Tracey Emin are routinely photographed in the latest Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney (who made Tatler's BDL), and Vivienne Westwood. Art events such as Frieze and the Venice Biennale have turned into the fifth stops on the annual ready-to-wear calendar and, this season, the romance has extended to the clothes, with Dolce & Gabbana offering floral hand-painted confections (pictured), Chloé splashing Rothko-like swathes of paint on to chiffon, and Prada going all art nouveau and swirly."

"As for the art world, forensic evidence indicates it is still in fashion. Dries van Noten showed a collection for next season replete with spin, splash, and pointillist prints, while a mere three days after the Paris shows drew to a close in London, Tod's sponsored the Whitechapel gallery's annual Art Plus Film fundraiser, complete with invitation by designer Henry Holland, customised Tod's D-Bag by artist Jim Lambie (who is represented by Sadie Coles, who is herself often in magazines such as Vogue and Tatler), and a much-publicised star appearance by ... Agyness Deyn. Who wore plaid, if anyone wants to know."

Murakami / Louis Vuitton

"This is Not a Sidewalk Bag". Guy Trebay. The New York Times. 04.08.08. 

excerpted text and quotes:

"The baggage in question, made since 2002 in collaboration with Mr. Murakami and Louis Vuitton, has generated sales estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, by far the most successful such venture in the label's history. "

"Vuitton has a long tradition of these collaborations, of relationships with artists, going back to the Impressionists." (Yves Carcelle, Chairman of Louis Vuitton)

"Still, nothing the company ever did hit the jackpot like Mr. Murakami's cherry-ornamented and "Multico" bags, which came about, as Mr. Carcelle explained, after 9/11, when Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs, suggested to his corporate bosses that it was no good to mourn forever: fashion had a responsibility, ahem, to help people past their grief."Marc said," Mr. Carcelle recalled, " ' If I work with Takashi, and we do something colorful, I think it will help make New York strong again.'"

"Like the handbags, the purpose of these editions, Mr. Murakami said later, is to bring art to the hoi polloi, people in no position to lay out the $1.5 million that another Franch billionaire Francois Pinault, paid for a  23-foot Murakami statue of the space alien Mr. Pointy in 2003."

"Anyway, it is not the money that matters to him, he insisted, "I always want art to be accessible," he said at dinner, where the guests included Kristen Davis, Tinsely Mortimer and Julian Schnabel. "The money embarrasses me," he said, not looking embarrassed in the least." 

Murakami

Installation of Murakami. Brooklyn  Museum . April 2008. 

Louis Vuitton / Murakami

"Louis Vuitton's Original Take on Fakes". Text by Marc Karimzadeh. WWD.04.03.08. 

excerpted text and quotes:

"But rather than simply hand out leaflets to alert guests about the importance of protecting original design, the French luxury goods house will be taking a novel, somewhat intriguing route. Outside the museum, Vuitton is setting up 10 New York-style street vendors - not to sell fakes, but rather authentic Louis Vuitton product and special Monogramouflage canvases that Murakami has created specifically for the exhibition." 

"We think that by highlighting it in a happening way and not in a boring way, it will make everybody more aware". (Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton)

"Its educational because it puts millions of people in contact with artists that they probably never would have known". (Yves Carcelle, Chaiman and CEO of Louis Vuitton)

"We are expecting a big impact, but i don't think  anyone had imagined that nearly six years later, it would become one of the new eternal pillars of the vocabulary of Louis Vuitton". (Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Lousi Vuitton)

Marc Jacobs / Murakami

Marc Jacobs on Murakami. Produced by MOCA.