The Un-Private Collection: Takashi Murakami + Benoit Pagotto + Ed Schad

Takashi Murakami

Drawing from traditional Japanese painting, sci-fi, anime, and the global art market, Broad collection artist Takashi Murakami creates paintings, sculptures, and films populated by repeated motifs and mutating characters of his own creation embodying an intersection of pop culture, history, and fine art. In 2000, Murakami curated Superflat, an exhibition that advanced his Superflat theory of art, highlighting the “flatness” of Japanese visual culture from traditional painting to contemporary subcultures in the context of World War II and its aftermath. Following the Tōhoku earthquake of 2011 and the subsequent nuclear crisis at Fukushima, Murakami began exploring the impact of natural disasters on Japanese art and culture. His 2014 Gagosian exhibition in New York, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, featured an immersive installation of eclectic arhats; deliquescing clones of his fictional creature Mr. DOB; and karajishi, the mythic lions that guard Japanese Buddhist temples, entered through a replica of a sanmon, or sacred gate. In 2021, Murakami developed the CloneX NFT initiative in collaboration with RTFKT Studios. CloneX is a series of NFT avatars conceived as three-dimensional figures bearing his distinctive motifs including the artist’s Murakami.Flowers NFT project that combine his Superflat aesthetic with a style that evokes nostalgia for the pixelated graphics of 1980s video games.

Murakami earned a BA, MFA, and PhD from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he studied nihonga (traditional Japanese painting). In 1996, he established the Hiropon Factory, a studio/workshop that in subsequent years grew into an art production and artist management company, now known as Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd.

Benoit Pagotto

Benoit Pagotto is a co-founder of RTFKT Studios and is leading the next generation of creatives to redefine the relationship between creativity and business. Founded in 2020, RTKFT is a studio for next generation fashion and collectibles for the metaverse. RTKFT Studios works across fashion, gaming, NFTs, and blockchain authentication, and eventually caught the attention of Nike which acquired the company. RTKFT collaborated with Takashi Murakami on his recently issued NFTs. Prior to founding RTFKT, Benoit worked in the luxury goods and gaming industries. He studied visual art in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Ed Schad

Ed Schad is Curator and Publications Manager at The Broad in Los Angeles. Most recently, he curated the special exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow. Previously, he curated the monographic survey exhibition, Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again, and edited and wrote the book to accompany the exhibition. He also curated Carlos Cruz-Diez's Couleur Additive, co-curated a trilogy of group exhibitions Creature, Oracle, and A Journey that Wasn't, and was the host-curator of Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth co-organized by The Broad and the Royal Academy of London. He is the editor in chief of 50 Artists: Highlights of the Broad Collection, and he is the managing editor of The Broad Collection; The Broad: An Art Museum Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro; The Broad: Art and Architecture; and Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life, all published by Delmonico Prestel. Schad’s writing has been included in Art Review, Frieze, Modern Painters, Flash Art, The Brooklyn Rail, L.A. Weekly, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.