His contemporary style is a combination of anime, manga techniques and traditional Japanese styles. He is a very commercial artist and I think he has found a modern way of making a name for himself in mass media culture, by not only producing paintings but also dolls, t-shirts and Louis Vuitton handbags. In doing so he reaches a wider market.
I think he shares similarities to Andy Warhol in the way that he takes popular (low) culture (drawing from manga etc) and could then be seen to redesign and repackage it as high culture. He is, like Warhol, a very clever self-promotional artist.
His own style which he has developed is called ‘Superflat’, his images are made up of flat bold colours and the graphics and characters are a mixture of manga and anime styles.
His album art work is, in my opinion, brilliant. It is interesting and exciting because Murakami took the character, a bear, which has appeared on previous albums and made it his own (superflat) whilst maintaining it as Kanye’s trademark. I think is represents a strong bond between music and art.
The Graduation represents a timeline of albums, starting with The College Dropout, for the Graduation a fresh new style is created for the artist – A Graduation. It is also a fantastic way for an artists’ work to be seen all over the world – mass culture.
References
References
www.kanyeuniversecity.com/
www.warhol.org/
Superflat - Takashi Murakami
My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation - Takashi Murakami and Jeff Fleming
www.warhol.org/
Superflat - Takashi Murakami
My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation - Takashi Murakami and Jeff Fleming
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