HYPERALLERGIC
By Mengna Da
CHICAGO --- You’re probably familiar with
Takashi Murakami’s smiling flowers and eccentric paintings of Buddhist monks, but you might have never seen his earlier works, which looks drastically different from the joyful, luxurious style associated with his name. With 50 works spanning 1982 to 2017, the current Murakami retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) is visually and thematically rich. Its title,
The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg, evokes a doomed atmosphere and refers to an old Japanese saying that, according to the artist, suggests that in times of despair, one has to be fed by oneself to survive. [
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Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago: "Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg" (Closed September 24, 2017); 220 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois; 312-280-2660; mcachicago.org
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| Installation view, Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats its Own Leg at the MCA Chicago (photo by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago) |
