Paul Schimmel on Selling Murakami

LOS ANGELES—Like its subject, the “© Murakami” exhibition currently on view at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art combines elements from pop culture with mass-market and luxury products to attention-grabbing effect. Just as Takashi Murakami has profited from his appropriation of Japanese anime and manga and the impressive output of his massive Kaikai Kiki enterprise, the exhibition is making a name for itself through high-profile associations with Kanye West and Louis Vuitton.

The media frenzy surrounding the show began before it opened, with the museum drawing criticism—or at least skepticism—from museum stalwarts and the media for its decision to include within the exhibition space a functioning boutique offering products by Vuitton, with whom Murakami has collaborated for several years.

MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel, an art-world hotshot since his landmark 1992 exhibition “Helter Skelter,” which jettisoned a school of L.A. artists to recognition, organized the show, and worries that the hoopla around the boutique may overshadow the quality of the work. (He told us that despite the glut of media coverage of the show, “If you focus more on the exhibition and less on the boutique I promise you it’ll be fresh.”) He talked to ARTINFO about the criticism he’s faced, Murakami’s ties to Fluxus, and how he got Kanye to perform at the museum.  

Paul, how’s the turnout for the Murakami exhibition so far?

It is a very large audience. And we had the largest members opening to date: 7,600 or 7,700 members went, which was huge, and then we had 1,200 people for the concert and gala the next night.

And you had Kanye West. How did you get him?

It came out of a collaboration that began about a year and a half ago when Kanye West was visiting Takashi in Tokyo and asked him if he would design a record album; ultimately they also did an animation together. It was really a gift. Kanye charged us a tenth of his normal fee; I’m not even sure we covered his full expenses. And he gave a spectacular performance that made for a different evening.

I heard some of the place mats got stolen from the opening dinner.

Takashi and my wife and I had gotten up at some point before dessert and were talking to people. When we returned our place mats had been pilfered. I don’t have one!

Do you think the art world has resisted Murakami’s work at all? Where does he fit in?

Look, he works with great galleries, he’s in very important collections, he’s in museums all over the world. I don’t think resistance is the case—as a matter of fact I think that one of the hallmarks of his career is how unbelievably persuasive he’s been again and again.

For me the soul of this exhibition is the space in the bunker that has an archive of 500 collectible objects—everything from key chains to postcards to plush dolls to T-shirts. It reminds me of those old Fluxus collections. I was kind of brought up on that era, and everyone from Dieter Roth to Joseph Beuys or Nam June Paik made these unlimited-edition objects, or large editions that seemed unlimited. They called them multiples—the idea was to make collectible objects that would be available to the widest audience possible.

Has such a large collection of them ever been exhibited in one place?

No. And in some ways it was the result of Takashi not wanting to take on the offer we gave to Louis Vuitton, which was to build out and operate a fully functioning boutique. I had said to him that if Kaikai Kiki wanted to do it, it’s yours. He said, “You mean staff it?” I said yup and he said no.

Whose idea was the Vuitton boutique?

It was Takashi’s idea to the degree that he had worked with them on two occasions. I don’t think he thought they would do it. But Takashi had full control through Louis Vuitton of what has gone on inside that space. And there have been some things that have surprised me.

Like what?

Takashi found exactly the point that would irritate both me and Louis Vuitton. He took the materials that he had printed for various [Vuitton] products—the white one, the cherry one, five different sorts of patterns—and he had them stretched like paintings and made into a very large but numbered edition. He’s sort of selling this rather high-end multiple up in the Louis Vuitton boutique.