Paranoia?
Is Takashi Murakami paranoid? There are eyes are all over his art. They are sleepy eyes. Lazy eyes. Shifty eyes. Playful eyes. Wide awake eyes. And the are everywhere. They study you as you study them. Ok, now I'm the one who sounds paranoid. But really, what is the deal with the eyes?
Today was a rare day. A friend invited me to speak at career day at her high school. It was fun. The kids asked good questions and were very well behaved. Career Day ended a little earlier than I thought it would and since I had asked to have the whole day off, I took the opportunity to go to the Brooklyn Museum to check out the Murakami exhibit. I love his scary/cutsey pop art characters and was psyched when I heard about the retrospective right here in Brooklyn. Today being Wednesday, the museum wasn't very crowded so I really got to linger over the art works.
They were weird. They made me feel happy and they made me laugh. They also made me uncomfortable. There is a pink room. It is full of eyes. The eyes are all over the walls. All four walls. In pink. It's kind of amazing. There is another room with the walls covered in his signature flowers. It's an immediate mood lifter, that room.
The Brooklyn Museum does not allow visitors to photograph the special exhibits but I got a few bad shots on the sly. I didn't get a pic of the pink room or the happy flower room, unfortunately, but really, if you're in New York, go see it for yourself.
This image is called Tan Tan Bo Puking. The character in this painting is vomiting. The following words were in a thought bubble and they really affected me: "...As I cry for help, I regret my cowardly behavior, preventing others from loving me until now..."
