TrAIN

Current PhD - Beyond Consumption: the Art and Merchandise of a Superflat Generation

Cindy Lisica

Self-Portrait, 2005

Courtesy and © the artist

My research examines Superflat art and theory, conceived by Takashi Murakami (b. Tokyo, 1962), as a model for cross-cultural exchange via artists Chiho Aoshima, Takashi Murakami and Aya Takano. By merging Japanese and Western cultural concepts, the synthesis of ideas and layering of identities have produced a new form of hybrid and hyper Pop art. This investigation links Superflat to the work of American Pop and neo-Pop artists Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons and explores how Superflat art functions within and contributes to the already distorted area between parallel structures, such as high and low, art and commerce, or East and West.

When peeling back the layers of Superflat, there is a rich, beautiful and violent history. The flatness in Superflat is a multi-dimensional concept, and the anime and manga-influenced work results from a post-defeat culture of fantasy that is both unique to contemporary Japan and hugely successful in the international art market. From the blockbuster group exhibition, Superflat, curated by Murakami, which debuted in 2001 at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and included all three artists, to the 2007-2009 ©MURAKAMI retrospective traveling from Los Angeles to Brooklyn then Frankfurt to Bilbao, Superflat exemplifies the fusions of art and fashion, tradition and technology, capturing a new aesthetic in the continuing age of globalization and showing the way to unprecedented directions in contemporary art.

Cindy Lisica has an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art from California State University, Long Beach, and a BA in Integrative Art from Penn State University. Her MA dissertation, Multiple Dimensions of the Superflat: The Work of Takashi Murakami, was published by ProQuest in 2006. Recent curatorial projects include “Imaginary Spaces, Real Places” (2004) and “IVY Paris International” (2006). In April 2008 she presented a paper at the Brooklyn Museum of Art Academic Symposium, “Love & Pop: Contemporary Visual Cultures in Japan and Beyond.” In September 2008, she was a speaker at the “Imaginary Japan” Conference at the University of Helsinki, and she will be presenting at the “The Globalization of Japanese Popular Culture” session at the College Art Association Annual Conference to be held in Los Angeles in February 2009. She will give a lecture and discussion on Superflat at Pictopia 2009 (March 19-21), hosted by the House of World Cultures in Berlin.