Hikone Castle
Date1999-2000
Maker
Mr.
(born Masakatsu Iwamoto) Japanese, born 1969
Label TextFirst discovered by contemporary artist and entrepreneur Takashi Murakami, Mr. became the artist's first assistant in 1995. Since that time, he has worked at Murakami's factory, Kaikai Kiki, garnering international attention for his monumental sculptures of Lolita-esque schoolgirls and adolescent boys. Hikone Castle is an early work that expresses Mr.'s sensibility in acrylic on canvas. In this two-panel painting, a doe-eyed girl wearing a green bathing suit floats above the landscape in the night sky. Alongside this naïve figure, Mr. includes a disembodied head of another girl. On the horizon sits Hikone Castle, a National Treasure and architectural symbol of Japan's warrior age. The second panel, featuring an enormous floating human skull that dominates the canvas like an outsized memento mori, graphically emphasizes the theme of death.
Object number2007.260.1
Credit LineGift of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson
Dimensions30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm) each, two panels
MediumAcrylic on canvas
Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Henderson
late 19th - early 20th century
Object number: 95.38.239
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