Takashi Murakami’s smiling flowers are instantly recognisable; few living artists have emblems as iconic as his and even fewer have become cultural icons in their lifetimes. They make their way onto our cover together in the form of a vibrant, playful, whimsical visual featuring the artist amid his artwork, exclusively designed by Murakami and his studio Kaikai Kiki. While multiple interpretations of the flowers exist, the Japanese artist has explained that their meanings are layered. The most prominent explanation is that they resemble hope amid forlorn circumstances; but Murakami conceived his blooms, and much of his work, while thinking about the collective trauma of the Japanese after the Second World War, with particular regard to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The discomfiting feeling evoked by the flower motif…
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Tatler Hong Kong (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2024