Hikone Castle

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Hikone Castle

1999-2000

(born Masakatsu Iwamoto) Japanese, born 1969

First 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.

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 40in. (76.2 x 101.6cm) each, two panels

Gift of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson

2007.260.1

Not currently on view

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