727-272 Plus

Installed on the second floor of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in THE space for which it was specifically designed, the huge polyptych 727-722 (The Emergence of God at the Reversal of Fate) is notable in every way. It took Takashi Murakami and his many collaborators three years of extraordinary work to make this impressive, complex polyptych. A visually powerful, semi-abstract, semi-figurative painting cycle spreads out across its 16 panels, which, when unfolded, measure 24 metres in length.

Following in the footsteps of great Far Eastern painters, in this flowing work he includes quotations of the Chinese and Japanese masters whose legacy he unambiguously acknowledges “with a remarkable eccentricity that undoubtedly puts them as far ahead of their time as possible”. This piece of pictorial bravura marked a turning point in Murakami's work. Henceforth, he focused more on reflections about the depth of history and art history.

An ambitious commission for the Pinault Collection, the only time 727-722 ever left the Palazzo Grassi’s prestigious main salon was in 2014 for a show at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, "Art Lovers".