© Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

We’ll say one thing about the Takashi Murakami retrospective: at least it’s honest. Contemporary art is beyond big business these days, a fact Murakami embraces by copyrighting his work (note the symbol in the title) and planting a fully operational Louis Vuitton store smack in the middle of the galleries. The museum didn’t allow any photography of his prints and sculptures, either: if you wanted to take something home, you had to buy it.

Or use your brain to remember it. Sometimes called the “Warhol of Japan,” Murakami heavily borrows imagery from manga, anime, and other components of pop culture. Figures have disproportionately large eyes, tiny bodies, spiky hair, and pale white skin. A better appellation, however, might be “Japanese Jeff Koons.” Both artists like to push buttons, both rely on hypersexuality and cartoons to comment on consumerism, both like to collapse any distinction between traditionally high and low culture. Here, the result is colorfully crazy: rooms covered in smiling flowers, blobby skulls filled with neon, little mushroom creatures fresh out of Saturday morning tv shows, and, of course, his unique take on the iconic LV. So, OK, we'll say two things: it's very happy too. What it lacks in gravitas or substance it makes up for in sheer delight with the world, even if that delight is directly correlated with all the money coming in.

Photos: thanks and thanks