Real Not Real

So last summer, I saw the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I think I described it as “underwhelming” or, more pointedly, “superflat.” I thought the Louis Vuitton store in the middle of the exhibit was the most interesting bit, and it seemed sad that none of the pieces showed a trace of handwork. It isn’t that the collision of art and commerce is lost on me. I get it. It fascinates me. It’s part of why I’m a graphic designer.

I think the exhibit seemed uninteresting because the aesthetic didn’t really appeal to me and Murakami’s own celebrity goes over my head. If I were more enamored with him, or if he were more present in his work, I might’ve felt some connection to the pieces. As it was, it just seemed like an exhibit by a company that didn’t capture my attention.

And, now seeing this article in the LA Times, it sounds like others felt they got ripped off by the fact that Murakami’s hand (or even a context-specific artistic intent) wasn’t all that present in the pieces that sold for $6,000 in the LV store at MOCA. I LOVE this. I just love that this lawsuit is the premise for Murakami’s entire body of work. Is there a statute for the “Emperor’s New Clothes”?

And in other “What is Art” news, I’ve been following the Shepard Fairey/AP story. Unfortunate. A true waste of time, in my mind. But a nice post by Steve Heller here. And some great background information here and here.

I don’t usually post here about products or packaging, but Scott Amron / Amron Experimental’s “New Soap, Old Bottle” just seems lovely all-around. The product is nice (though I’d rather get natural soaps, not Dawn or SoftSoap, in my bottles), the packaging is nice, the site is nice. Since it hasn’t made the rounds of the blog circuit yet (it was just on design*sponge this morning), it seemed worth putting up here.