Superflat

727 (1996)

Artist: Takashi Murakami

This work presents Murakami's iconic Mr. DOB, a whimsical but maniacal mouse-like character, with many eyes and appendages, baring his shark-like smile while riding a stylized wave that swirls from upper left to the right center. The wave, a parody of Hokusai's ukiyo-e treatment in The Great Wave (c. 1830-1832) visually unites all three panels. The use of three panels, simultaneously suggests a modern Western triptych and a Japanese byobu, or traditional folding screen, implying that Mr. DOB conquers both worlds and flattens the distinctions between them.

Mr. DOB is known as Murakami's alter ego. Its name is a contraction of "dobojite, dobojite," a dada-like phrase taken from the manga Inakappe Taisho, which means "why? why?" DOB is always spelled out on the character's face, D on one ear, B on the other, his round face representing the O, so that in all of his transmutations, he is instantly recognizable. The use of text reflects the influence of the works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, who were introduced to the Japanese art world in the early 1990s when Murakami created Mr. DOB. The influence of anime and manga can also be seen in DOB's cartoon-like appearance and large eyes, and the manga catlike character Doraemon influenced his large red open mouth and nose.

Viewers cannot avoid the obvious connection to Disney icon Mickey Mouse, which is here transfigured into a very different figure, with its snarling smile and crazed expression, as if the character embodies the antagonism the artist felt toward America and the Western art world at the time he first created the figure in 1993. The piece draws upon the Japanese use of ma or negative space, and its many layers of paint, resembling traditional lacquer, have been scraped, to create the sense of a Japanese folding screen, in ruin. The title refers to U.S airplanes that were stationed at bases in Japan that frequently flew over the artist's childhood home, and suggests that Mr. DOB, riding his wave, is a kind of Japanese counter force, given impetus by art.

Murakami said, "The work is not particularly representative of anything. It is simply a combination of all the available techniques that I had at the time," but the character became the signature of his brand. His aim, as he said, was "market survivability - the universality of characters such as Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog, Doraemon, Miffy, Hello Kitty, and their knock-offs produced in Hong Kong," As art historian Grace McQuilten wrote, Murakami's DOB functions as "commercial branding," and in the realms of art and commerce, "celebrates the depthless nature of consumerism."

Murakami has depicted the character in many works, like his neon colored and psychedelic treatment Hands Clasped (2015). Mr. DOB has been widely reproduced in posters, t-shirts, key chains, and bubble gum dispensers, among other products. Yet, as art critic Christopher Knight noted, "Murakami is the first major artist, Eastern or Western, to make our pervasive culture of branding a primary subject."