Murakami and Me

well, i met takashi murakami today.

he was giving a lecture for Christie's. grace works for them (i dont think i would have known about it otherwise!), and had to work the event -- she took murakami to his dinner with oliver stone... yeah....

for those who don't know, he's a japanese artist who was very influential in the japanese art movement called "superflat." it's based on this anime culture called otaku... and what he did was take his artwork and commercialized it not only (extremely successful) in the art world, but into merchandising like tshirts, paper, pins, dishes, picture frames, and everything imgainable. he's also done collaborations with designers and other artists.. most notably louis vuitton and kanye west. his stuff is pretty cool... think: cute hello kitty, but more high-art, and more vicious.

here is his WEBSITE

or you can just google-search him for more info.

ps. we got complimentary fans at the lecture, and he signed mine. so you can buy it from me for $100,000 or $1,000,000 that if he ever dies (i think he may be an alien, so... we'll see...)