[JAPAN] Marukami’s book releases

In a recent column by Roland Kelts for the Daily Yomiuri, Kelts wrote, “Two newly published books, Art Space Tokyo and A Wild Haruki Chase, feature essays I wrote about men named Murakami.”

“When the finished books arrived in my mail last week, I considered the apparent coincidence. Takashi Murakami, 45, is a visual artist whose pop-inspired, mass-produced sculptures, paintings, gift shop trinkets and Louis Vuitton bags have led critics to brand him an heir to Andy Warhol. Haruki Murakami, 59, is an author whose sometimes surreal, dreamlike writing has invited comparisons to Western authors as diverse as Franz Kafka and Raymond Carver. The two Murakamis express themselves through very different art forms, and arguably from different ends of a generation gap. Yet the parallels are striking.”

“Murakami is a common family name in Japan, of course, and if I’d also written about novelist Ryu Murakami in another book out this month, I’d have what ice hockey aficionados call “a hat trick”–three goals in a single game. But in this case, both Takashi and Haruki are artists who incorporated American influences into their creative DNA, then actively reached out to, or even courted, American audiences for their work.”

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