"I work with a certain fear of one day being replaced" by AI, he told AFP, on the occasion of an exhibition presenting about forty of his works, which opens Saturday at the Gagosian gallery in Le Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis).

As "with the arrival of the Apple II (one of the first personal computers, editor's note)", which led to the eviction of their elders by young design professionals, "the change of generation will be drastic", he adds, in Japanese, his face serene and concentrated.

The same scenario is likely to happen again "in one or two years, in the world of visual art but also elsewhere, with the arrival of people who know how to use AI," he continues.

Installed in front of his last monumental fresco of 23 meters long by 5 meters high, hair knotted and beard pepper and salt, he sits straight, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a jacket that they designed himself.

A tribute to traditional Kabuki theatre, this fresco is exhibited with four other monumental paintings, including its famous smiling flowers with a "superflat" aesthetic (in two dimensions, editor's note) that made it famous.

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami at the Gagosian Gallery in Le Bourget, near Paris, June 8, 2023 © JOEL SAGET / AFP

At their side, his lucky cats are next to his pixelated paintings that pay tribute to the video-game and computer culture of the 80s. They often ask the viewer to make the effort to decode them.

"Deceitful ideas"

"AI will certainly do damage to technical professions but I don't think it will be able to counter our ideas. The most far-fetched (of them), those that even AI cannot generate, will become valuable," he said.

Having appropriated many algorithmic techniques himself, he maliciously evokes "the rise of creators with much more deceitful ideas", using "engineering techniques that will succeed in making the most bizarre things familiar".

In the huge building with white walls of the gallery, gigantic grime figures are entangled above a huge snake in an explosion of colors, epic "story" in images, dear to the artist.

With this work, made with acrylic paint covered with lacquer, leaving no trace of the hand that made it, the artist says he has gained the recognition of older generations who did not appreciate him until then in Japan.

Opposite, a symbolic and gigantic "blue dragon" refers to the video game "Blue Dragon" and the universal myth, transporting the public into the world of Japanese printmaking.

"New continent"

A star with multiple international collaborations in fashion - Louis Vuitton, multidisciplinary designers Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams or Kanye West -, successful businessman whose merchandising products are sold all over the world, Takashi Murakami says he "understood the grammar and rules" of this universe thanks to these collaborations.

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami at the Gagosian Gallery in Le Bourget, June 8, 2023 © JOEL SAGET / AFP

He says he is continuing the experiment with the watch manufacturer Hublot, a project that he hopes to be able to announce soon.

With this ability to invest in all fields of creation, the artist also worked with the company RTFKT, present in the world of NFT (works of art certified by a digital contract, editor's note), to give birth to sneakers that had to be acquired in the virtual universe before being able to obtain their physical double.

For him, the universe of these crypto-assets is like a "new continent" and it will take time for the public to appropriate it, like bank cards in the past.

He says he "creates real paintings to explain the world of NFTs to people in the real world", as if they were "bridges" between real life and the virtual world.

As a sign of his desire to democratize this new form of art, he must offer Saturday to visitors who wish an NFT on registration: a virtual coin with the effigy of his famous smiling flower.

© 2023 AFP