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(07/07/17 4:11pm)
When I heard Takashi Murakami’s retrospective The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg was being
installed at Chicagos’s Museum of Contemporary Art, my well being shot up a few points. No
longer living a train ride away from the Windy City, I made plans with myself to get my butt up to
the museum as soon as possible.
I’m not sure how I came to love Murakami and his famous self
made superflat artwork, but taking a few glances at his famous colorful daisies or his alter
persona Mr.Dob, makes it hard for anyone not to be more than just “kinda” intrigued by the
Japanese artist.His exhibit at the MCA was a retrospective that started off with his early years of
paintings from the 80’s all the way to the grand finale of his 2017 piece subtitled "The Octopus
Eats Its Own Leg".
As I walked in to the start of the exhibit, I was taken aback by the images that
captured my view. Murakami’s career began with paintings created in the traditional Japanese
style of Nihonga, which incorporates special types of paper like washi (Japanese paper made by
hand) or silk. A lot of the pigments used in this style of painting are natural, like minerals, semi-
precious stones and shells. I was drawn to a painting on the back wall of the first room that
depicted a few people walking in front of three large nuclear cooling towers. The image was dark
and thick. The characters moving across the canvas were blobs of shadow while the smoke
pumping out of the reactor splotched up and out. The materials used included straw, which is
what appeared to make the smoke clot off of the canvas. I had never seen Murakami use this
style or technique before and I realized he was a master without distinction long before creating
Kanye West’s Graduation album cover or Louis Vuitton’s handbag designs.
As I continued on, I was introduced to Mr.Dob, a mouse-like character that Murakami had created as his personal
icon. Mr.Dob would appear as many different morphed versions throughout Murakami’s works.
Pieces were starting to become more familiar to me as colors started popping off the walls and
large anime eyed mushrooms peered at me from the canvases. This was the Murakami that I
knew and had absorbed through pop culture. His pictures of Japanese “high” art and “low” art
created images such as "727 (1990)", which was a three paneled canvas that mimicked Japanese
screen painting, with layers of various purples and blues that were made to look centuries old
and worn. In the midst of all of this is a red eyed, dagger toothed Mr.Dob, demonically riding
white curling waves across the canvas and as the exhibit suggested “Mr.Dob is a time traveler
traversing Asian art history.”
Murakami’s coinage of the word “superflat” signified a creation of works that reference
various forms of Japanese graphic art, pop culture, and animation that came after World War ll.
One of the most iconic images created with superflat was Murakami’s daisies. Hundreds of
various sized and colored daisies smile across the canvas with big bowl shaped mouths and oval
eyes. The eyes of the viewer are led on a little journey across the canvas, taking in the mass of
flowers which appear identical at first but are stylized to be different. As I worked my way
through rooms that looped and swirled with galactic alien Mr.Dobs, animated creatures and
designs, my mind swirled with possibilities of creation and imagination. The beauty of this weird
display of ceiling to floor art made me feel like I was in Murakami’s own dream spaceship. I
arrived in a dark domed room with two larger that life sculptures of trolls, clubs in tow, who
guarded the entrance and exits like sentinels on either side of the wide and darkened room.
Illuminated across the left wall was an outstanding 9 panel display labeled "Dragon in Clouds -
Indigo Blue", which was so large I couldn’t get a panorama photo of it.
Hidden in the corners of this room were two small paintings spray painted with glowing
orange paint. The first one read “The Octopus Eats” and the second “Its Own Leg”. Beneath
these words were a memoir by Murakami himself explaining his cycle of art, people, and ideas. I
think what drew me most to what he had to say was that he had chosen art as a way to escape
working with others but in turn that is exactly what he does. Self-proclaimed introverts
everywhere can identify with this feeling, myself included, and that is why, I think, when I
walked out of the exhibit I let out a huge sigh of relief. For experiencing something magical and
to have it come from a man who has to bite off his own self preserving identity once in awhile to
keep growing.
I highly recommend anyone in Chicago take a walk through the retrospective if
the chance arises. The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg will be in Chicago until September 24.
Click through the gallery below for a short preview of the retrospective:
[gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="12336,12337,12338,12339,12340"]
(02/08/17 5:21am)
3/7
Myths 002. Upon initial listen to the four tracks on the EP, I was slightly underwhelmed and a part of me was relieved that there were only 14 minutes of sound. Natalie Mering’s voice (Weyes Blood) seemed to blend together in a redundant wave of high pitched sadness that I didn’t really understand.
Over the course of a week I gave the 14 minute EP a few more spins on Spotify, and although this wouldn’t be my first choice in the morning for music, I grew to appreciate the ghostly qualities of Weyes Blood and the cool monotone of Ariel Pink. The mixing of the two voices together evokes a short, delirious fantasy between two singers who appear to be lost in themselves and not necessarily each other.
The best song on Myths 002 is the third track, “Morning After”, sung entirely by Weyes Blood. Melancholic and longing, I got the sense she was searching for someone who left and probably would never return. Giving the lyrics a bit more time, I finally understood what Ariel Pink and Weyes Blood were trying to get at in the EP. The first track, "Tears on Fire,” is about a confused regret of physical desire for somebody else, the lines that stuck out to me were; "The joke was from the heart / I’m just high not a liar / it’s really all my fault / I jumped up on desire."
I think this portrayed a theme in the EP as a whole of two people who ultimately wanted different things out of each other, trying to figure it out, and concluding the whole ordeal with “On Another Day." They come together and realize that maybe in another place or time they’d work out, but for the present moment, that is not where they’re meant to be and it’s sadly okay.
For how short this record was, I feel like I got a snapshot glimpse of the feeling of “right person wrong time,” and that is how I choose to appreciate it. I still don’t think I could casually throw this album on, it’s too muddled and confusing to pick it apart. I’d say this is an album of contemplation, not necessarily carefree musical enjoyment. I also realize I spent a long time analyzing the album to a point where I feel others would need to do the same to understand it and find their own point of view. The album becomes interesting with intent. However, I’d encourage everyone who listens to Myths 002 to give it time, and it just might grow on you.
(10/31/16 1:47pm)
Rating 6/7
I was looking for some music to start writing about, as it has been quite some time since I've written a review, and I decided to smack my sophomore slump in the rump by writing about the band Goat and their new album Requiem, released on October 7.
If I could describe how I felt when I randomly chose to listen to “Psychedelic Lover," track 6 out of the 13-track album, it would be that I had finally found the band I’d been unconsciously searching for for an unmeasurably long amount of time.
Goat hails from Korpilombolo (say that three times fast), Sweden, which according to Wikipedia only has about 529 residents. If that wasn’t intriguing, the band is completely anonymous and has chosen to stay far far away from the social media super massive black hole that marks the 2010’s.
Listening track by track, my senses take me to a place of flickering flames and shadowy pines in the middle of a balmy night, while mysterious musicians play a multitude of unconventional instruments and styles that seamlessly fit together in what I could only call a “musical orgy."
The 8 minute “Goodbye” begins with a soft melody that is reminiscent of a calm, meditative style raga that induces a zen-like ambience while listening. As the song builds, it adds layers of guitars and beats that pulse through my ears like a sunny little dream on a fall day.
Besides the eerie and ghostly calls of a few female singers dispersed throughout the album, the focus of Requiem is purely instrumental. This creates a dusky atmosphere that allows listeners to notice less of what the art is saying and more of the feeling the art invokes. My brain was given a break to just float along with these hidden musicians rather than grasp for words or meanings that aren't always necessary for music.
Requiem kept me interested and engaged throughout the entirety of the hour long album while broadening my musical horizon with it’s laid-back, psychedelic sounds. Goat has put out two albums prior to Requiem which give a great foundation to a seriously enigmatic and energetic band of musicians. Sweden's mystery, Goat, has done all right by me.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCGWjoEp9PM[/embed]
(10/14/15 2:24pm)
ex·trav·a·gance - excessive elaborateness of style, speech, or action.
In a review I read about Urban Flora, it was described as “R&B-infused downtempo electronic music stripped of extravagance.”
I got a small nudge from my subconscious that something “stripped of its extravagance” carried a negative connotation. Until I looked up the dictionary definition of the word and realized that for this certain description, there couldn’t be anything more spot on.
Alina Baraz’s collaboration with Danish producer Galimatias was every bit a match made in musical heaven. The album, released this May, was the first from Ohio-born singer/song writer Alina Baraz. The intent is to make the listener feel like they’re taking an enchanting walk through a moonlit forest. I don’t want to sound sappy, but there really is no other way to describe this album. Not only are the vocals sensual and purposely seductive, but the melody of each song brings in so many different elements of sound that can only be heard if you pay close attention in a relaxing atmosphere.
Personally the best way to enjoy Urban Flora is popping in some earbuds in a quiet, dimly lit room by yourself and just feeling it. The different pieces in each song fit together in a mysterious way that can’t be heard properly without listening very carefully. As a whole, each track flows into the next seamlessly and takes the listener on a journey through their deepest desires.
The second song on the eight track album, “Drift”, begins with the subtle sounds of what might be fire blown by the wind, before she begins her first line with:
“I only miss you when the sun goes down
oh, your voice is my favorite sound
swaying like the palm trees
you and me we’re poetry
painting stories with our lips”
It’s like honey. Something magical and sweet that Baraz & Galimatias bring to life. Baraz sings feelings that many people only know how to express physically. She is asking you to “undress her mind” when listening to these tracks and you do accomplish that by the end, as well as finding your own mind becoming undressed in the process.
Pay attention to these tracks:
“Drift”
“Fantasy”
“Make You Feel”