Milk

1998

Acrylic on linen mounted on board

243.8 x 487.7 cm (96 x 192 in.)

Milk’s flatness and division into several panels are borrowed from the Japanese screen. Splashes of white tending towards purely abstract decorative motifs stretch out on a neutral pink background.

Created together with Cream (1998), another polyptych with a blue background, Milk exemplifies Murakami Takashi’s so-called superflat paintings. Their exaggerated two-dimensionality and unsettling themes, such as consumerism and sexual fetishism, illustrate Japanese subcultures. Shown opposite hyper-sexualised sculptures by the same artist, Hiropon and My Lonesome Cow-Boy, the work reveals its motif’s suggestive dimension.

Like the aforementioned works by Takashi Murakami, Milk is in the Pinault Collection. They were presented together at the 2009 major group show "Mapping the Studio" at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice.
Exhibitions