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Lot Essay
Joan Miró, Ciphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman, 1941 (C) 2003 Successió Miró Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York ADAGP, Paris
"Mr. Dob has now become a kind of self-portrait. However, he came into existence in a very particular context: this was the time when artists like Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, whose works gave a prominent role to language, were being shown in Japan. I realised that by lining up totally unrelated words-to be specific, the phrase-'dobojite, dobojite, oshamanbe'-you could make a 'Jenny Holzer-style' art. So first, I made light boxes with these words on. In fact my main aim was to show that the art advocated by those American artists...was totally unsuited to the Japanes, and that imitating had to stop, because it was a real embarrassment for us. In the beginning...Mr. Dob did not arise as a character, but simply as a figure with two ears...Dob being the abbreviation of the joke I have just mentioned; only later did he become a character. Through him, one on the aims was to show Japanese artists and critics that we had to find another means of expression.
(H. Kelmachter, "Interview with Takashi Murakami," takashi murakami, Paris 2002, p.75).
"Mr. Dob has now become a kind of self-portrait. However, he came into existence in a very particular context: this was the time when artists like Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, whose works gave a prominent role to language, were being shown in Japan. I realised that by lining up totally unrelated words-to be specific, the phrase-'dobojite, dobojite, oshamanbe'-you could make a 'Jenny Holzer-style' art. So first, I made light boxes with these words on. In fact my main aim was to show that the art advocated by those American artists...was totally unsuited to the Japanes, and that imitating had to stop, because it was a real embarrassment for us. In the beginning...Mr. Dob did not arise as a character, but simply as a figure with two ears...Dob being the abbreviation of the joke I have just mentioned; only later did he become a character. Through him, one on the aims was to show Japanese artists and critics that we had to find another means of expression.
(H. Kelmachter, "Interview with Takashi Murakami," takashi murakami, Paris 2002, p.75).