The Broad's two new exhibits, "Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow" and "This Is Not America’s Flag”

 LOS ANGELES, CA (May 29, 2022) By Karen Ostlund
The Broad Museum's two new exhibitions, "Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow" and "This Is Not America’s Flag” are both running now until September 25, 2022.
                                                                              

Artist Takashi Murakami at the Broad Museum.

Murakami’s first monograph exhibition at the Broad museum will feature 18 works, as well as immersive environments developed in tandem with the artist and his studio, Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
                                                                                 

On view is the 1999 sculpture DOB in the Strange Forest (Blue DOB),which features Murakami’s iconic anime-inspired character Mr. DOB, one of many figures that the artist has created throughout his career.

                                                                                   

Murakami's Shangri-La Pink painting

Murakami’s exhibition will coincide with the release of a catalogue. published by DelMonico Books, The Broad, and Kaikai Kiki Co - that shows the artist’s practice through the Broad collection and key loans. The catalogue will feature essays by The Broad Curator Ed Schad, Pico Iyer, and a conversation with Murakami. “Artworks in these exhibitions speak to recovery, resistance, and even beauty in the face of deep social and environmental upheaval,” said The Broad Founding Director Joanne Heyler.

                                                                                  

Murakami's sculpture Shangri-La at The Broad

Takashi Murakami’s work reflects within its complex iconography a response to times of crisis connected to postwar Japan or the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His exhibition will allow museum visitors to experience his artistic universe, with both recent works and ones from earlier in his career, and subject matter such as globalization, postwar Japan, pop culture, and religious iconography. The art-work will feature sculpture, painting, wallpaper, and immersive installations.                                                             

Murakami and Virgil Abloh "Times America Too 2018"

             At the heart of the presentation are two of the artist’s largest paintings, 100 Arhats (2013) and In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow (2014), 32-feet wide and 82-feet wide.  

                                                                         

"This Is Not America’s Flag" will spotlight the myriad ways of 20 artists exploring the symbol of the flag of the United States of America in history, underscoring its vast, divergent, and complex meanings.

The exhibit is titled after Alfredo Jaar’s iconic 1987 work, "A Logo for America” which provides a critical discourse on the symbol’s meaning, the complexity and contradictions of contemporary national identity.
Over twenty artists are presented in "This Is Not America’s Flag" including Laura Aguilar, Nicole Eisenman, Jeffrey Gibson, Hammons, Jaar, Johns, and Hank Willis Thomas.
The exhibition was launched  in the summer of 2020 during the groundswell of activism for racial justice in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor and was inspired by two works in the Broad collection, Flag (1967) by Jasper Johns and African-American Flag (1990) by David Hammons.

Takashi Murakami’s "Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow" and
"This is Not America’s Flag" on view now through September 25, 2022
The Broad, 211 South Grand Ave, CA, Los Angeles 90012.
www.thebroad.org