Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/987755
Top: Installation view, Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg, 2017, at MCA Chicago Above: Takashi Murakami's 727, 1996 My Lonesome Cowboy. In 2008, Murakami's sculpture of a naked fully aroused anime boy set an auction record for the artist when it sold for $13.5 million, showing he was a force to be reckoned with in the upper echelons of the art market. The 500 Arhats. In 2012, Murakami made an audacious 300-foot-long painting called The 500 Arhats in response to the earthquake and tsunami that hit the eastern coast of Japan in 2011. The subject riffed on historical precedent and introduced 500 new characters into his work, which he continues to draw upon today. The painting was first shown in Qatar but made its way to Tokyo and was put on view at the Mori Art Museum in 2015 — breaking that museum's attendance records and reintroducing his work to the Japanese public for the first time in more than a decade. "Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg," on view June 10 through September 16, at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, themodern.org. Above: Virgil Abloh and Takashi Murakami with their collaboration Kyoto Ens , 2018 Right: Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh's TIMES NATURE, 2018