Deconstructing Joy

As children in this country, we are trained to connect emotionally to ‘stuff.’ Stuff we can buy, stuff we don’t need, stuff other kids have, stuff on TV, stuff from the movies. Just stuff. It is a never-ending cycle of purchasing. It is capitalism. The machine has learned to sell to small, not quite developed people who don’t even have money. Commercials target our children and tell them they need the newest gadget or Disney toy to be happy and the same commercials tell parents that this is the key to the hearts of their beloveds. More and more our lives revolve around buying, shopping, wanting, desiring.

I write this on the day deemed ‘black Friday’- the day that kicks off the season of shopping, oh, scratch that, the season of giving. This is the day the stores and corporations hope to go ‘into the black’ as millions of people line up in the pre-dawn hours to rifle through bins, push the elderly aside and throw an elbow or two in order to buy that perfect dress for that oh so perfect sale price.

This was the day I spent perusing the Takashi Murakami exhibit at a local museum. I wasn’t sure what to expect or if I would even enjoy the work. What I read talked about his artistic roots in an ancient Japanese style linked to a post-modern technique mixed with hyper-sexual anime imagery layered over a political message highlighting the absurdity of over--consuming. All this done in a bright palate with bubbly images of Mr. DOB, a happy character akin to Mickey Mouse surrounded by lots of happy flowers.

Sounds interesting but how will it make me respond and connect? That is always the question I have for art. Will it draw me in and make me feel? Will it help me create new thoughts that had never been present before that moment?

Well, I must say that I nearly cried. The lines, shapes, colors, and googly eyes everywhere drew in me in and I was instantly taken with the saturated tones of bright kid-like hues. Murakami uses a style called “Super flat.” This style challenges the expectations of a three-dimensional image for a cartoon-like figure. Rather the smiling flowers and bubbly mouse-ish creatures sit firmly pegged against the canvas. They become simultaneously bold and flat. The angles begin to distort, the anime characters suddenly dissect into smaller pieces with an ear and an eye found in one corner while a smile and an ear settle in another. Some installations go even darker in spite of their rainbow tints where our hero, Mr. DOB has grown a mouth full of fangs dripping with a colored substance. This image is repeated on the same canvas and sliced and scattered as one might expect from surrealist art.

This is when I am struck by what has moved me from his art: Murakami has dissected joy. He has torn to shreds the kind, smiling creature with big happy eyes begging for us to buy pillows, shirts, key chains and stuffed animals of his likeness and has pieced him back together like a Frankenstein with too many eyes and too many teeth. I am frightened by the imminent attack from the wall. Murakami asks us to question our attachment to all things commercial and consumable. He takes what we have been told is joy and minces it into an unrecognizable form that seeks to gnaw away at the flesh and soul; he unmasks the truth of capitalism: profit over people, consumption over humanity.

Mushroom clouds like those of that oh so far away past in Hiroshima, Japan set against a series of monochromatic canvases look deep inside me with their multi-flower eyes. Fear, death and destruction paired with joy, peace and love. Which will ultimately take the highest position in our society? Will our child reach for the familiarity of a bloody-toothed Mr. DOB because he represents a false image of joy in spite of the deep seeded fear that his truth represents?

I nearly cried because I felt the truth in what the art was saying. It is a reminder that consuming for consumptions sake has ultimately create poison within us. Capitalism is not joy. Joy is kindness and thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of others. Joy is laughter and happiness but not at the expense of another’s human rights. Murakami’s images remind us that there is much more to reach for in this world than just our pocket books. What is sold as a substitute for happiness is just that and while life is to be enjoyed it should also subsist with conscious action and purpose.