The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade usually features floats from iconic American cartoons, like SpongeBob SquarePants or Charlie Brown. This year, many of the same familiar characters will still be there, but there will also be two floats that you definitely won’t recognize from Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. The two floats that I’m referring to “do not promote any televsision cartoon shows or breakfast cereals, and are merely ambassador’s of Mr. [Takashi] Murakami’s own playfully esoteric art.” Mr. Murakami is a Japanese pop artist, whose work is being displayed in the parade as a result of Macy’s attempt to display balloons designed by an internationally diverse group of artists. The executive producer of the parade, Robin Hall, believes that “there’s room in this parade- and always believed this – for high art.” Murakami’s two characters that will be floating in the parade are Kaikai and Kiki. Kaikai, a childlike character in a rabbit costume, and Kiki, a character with three eyes and two dangling fangs epitomize Murakami’s artistic style and aesthetic philosophy. What I found particularly interesting, is the way that Murakami describes them: “cute yet fearsome.” Does this remind any of you another Japanese artist’s work? When I read this quote and saw a picture of the Kaikai float, I was immediately reminded of Yoshimoto Nara’s style. As many of us saw last week at the Asia Society Museum and all of us discussed in class, many of Yoshimoto Nara’s character’s can also be described as “cute yet fearsome.” I wonder if these two artists, who are both modern Japanese artists around the same age, have influenced each other’s works in any way.
Compare Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai from above to Yoshimoto Nara’s White Riot below:
