Chasing the Eccentrics:
Takashi Murakami in Conversation with Etsuko Price

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Presented in conjunction with The Broad’s special exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, on view May 21–September 25, 2022, this conversation with Etsuko Price—who with her husband Joe, amassed an unparalleled collection of traditional Japanese art focused on the Edo-period—and artist Takashi Murakami explores how traditional Japanese painting has influenced and inspired Murakami’s creative practice. This dialogue, moderated by Yuko Kaifu, President of JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles, also offers a window into the long-held friendship Murakami and Mrs. and Mr. Price have developed over their passion for traditional Japanese art.

Among the Price family and Murakami’s many shared passions are painters labeled as “eccentrics” by the art historian Nobou Tsuji in his 1970 book Lineage of Eccentrics. Artists such as Itō Jakuchū, 1716–1800, Nagasawa Rosetsu, 1754–99, and Soga Shōhaku, Japan, 1730–81, inspired both the Price’s collecting and Murakami’s art practice. In 2009, Murakami and Tsuji began a creative dialogue centered on the eccentrics. This collaboration led to an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2017, for which Murakami and Tsuji selected Japanese works from the museum’s collection and showed them alongside works by Murakami. Many of the artists in the exhibition figure prominently in the Price collection.

The conversation (in both Japanese and English) was held in the JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles Level 5 Salon, and included an audience Q&A.

The program was livestreamed on the JAPAN HOUSE LA and The Broad websites as well as on respective Facebook pages @TheBroadMuseum @JapanHouseLA.

*To watch the video in full screen, please click on the image above, then click on the YouTube icon on the lower right-hand corner.

Ticketing Information
Tickets include access to The Broad’s special exhibitions Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow and This Is Not America’s Flag and the third floor galleries between Wednesday, May 25 until Thursday, June 30, 2022, during operating hours. Access to Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013) is not included and must be booked separately here. Please present your Chasing the Eccentrics event ticket at the main entrance of The Broad.

Speakers

About Takashi Murakami
Drawing from traditional Japanese painting, sci-fi, anime, and the global art market. Takahashi Murakami creates paintings, sculptures, and films populated by repeated motifs and mutating characters of his own creation embodying an intersection of pop culture, story, and fine art. In 2000, Murakami created Superflat, an exhibition that advanced his superflat theory of art, highlighting the “flatness” of Japanese visual culture from traditional painting to contemporary subcultures in the context of World War II and its aftermath.

About Etsuko Price
Etsuko Price was born in Fukuchiyama City in Kyoto and was brought up in Tottori Prefecture of Japan. She moved to the U.S. in 1965 and married Joe Price in 1966. Since then, Joe and Etsuko Price built up a collection of Japanese art centering on Edo-period works by Ito Jakuchu, Maruyama Ohkyo, and others. They established the Shin’enKan Foundation in 1980 to publicly show their collection and support research.

 

The Broad is a contemporary art museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. The museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative audience engagement, all within a landmark building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. The Broad is home to the Broad collection, which is one of the world’s leading collections of postwar and contemporary art.