“Sometimes he’s playful and sweet. Sometimes he’s more menacing. Sometimes he’s being affected by all these external forces. Or is even able to maybe create certain moods and ideas that reflect his own personal and artistic struggles, and channel that into Mr. DOB.”
— Michael Darling on Takashi Murakami and Mr. DOB
Achieving a playful balance between cute and menacing, commodity and art, Forest of DOB by Takashi Murakami synthesises contemporary culture to blur the lines between high art and popular culture. Utilising Murakami’s famed visual lexicon, it features his self-created cartoon character MR. DOB, who has since become synonymous with the artist’s oeuvre. An early representation of the artist’s alter ego, MR. DOB is presented as a dual-faced creature with numerous eyes and two mouths – one smiling joyfully, the other bearing sharp teeth with an almost demonic grimace. Physically manifesting the letters D, O and B, they are printed on nodules scattered across the vinyl surface in reference to its name.
Exhibited alongside similar works at prestigious institutions and galleries worldwide, including SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Zurich and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Forest of DOB cleverly brings to life the titular character via the use of vinyl chloride and helium to create an inflatable balloon . Acknowledged to be the father of the Superflat movement, Murakami is typically known for his flat aesthetic, a reference to the flattened imagery found in both traditional Japanese art as well as recent 2D graphics, which includes anime and manga. Subverting his typical style however, the present 3D work is suspended in mid-air as it towers over viewers. Reminiscent of Murakami’s own mass-produced balloons, it oscillates between an innocent children’s toy that brings joy, and the embodiment of an ominous undertone that stems from MR. DOB’s partially menacing appearance.
“In any case, the important thing in art is how you express your reality; it’s crucial to accurately depict the influences you have received in life through various methods and grammars of art.”
— Takashi Murakami
Drawing inspiration from various streams of popular culture, MR. DOB was initially based on other famous Japanese and Western fictional characters. “I set out to investigate the secret of 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,” he said in a statement. i At first hoping to birth a uniquely Japanese figure with universal appeal, the villainous transformation of an originally kawaii creature reflects a deeper contemplation of psychological trauma, colonialism and consumerism in post-war Japan, one that is also reflected in the character’s name: a contraction of the slang phrase dobojite dobojite (why? Why?), MR. DOB serves to question the world around it by constantly evolving and changing forms to adapt its surroundings. More than a celebration of Japanese aesthetics and subculture, Forest of DOB is thus a response to the conditions and sensibilities of a contemporary era that questions just how superficial and overwhelming modern life can be.