Superflat

Word List

Bijutsu
Fine art
Kindai Bijutsu
Modern art
Manga
Manga are comics and print cartoons, in Japanese and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century.
Otaku
Known as a mass media product presenting Japanese Culture, anime, has gained an increasing exposure and acceptance overseas during the 1990s. The term otaku, which was coined in 1982 and came into popular usage by 1989, is usually translated as ‘geek’ or ‘aficionado,’ and refers to a group of people who ‘take refuge in a world of fantasy, drinking in the images supplied by the modern media – usually from television, magazines and comic books, but also computer images or video games’ (Baral 1999: 22). The etymology of "otaku" was drawn upon the work of Volker Grassmuck in his seminal otaku-studies article:

"I 'm alone, but not lonely": Japanese Otaku-Kids colonize the Realm of Information and Media, A Tale of Sex and Crime from a faraway Place.

Superflat art

“The world of the future might be like Japan is today – Superflat. Society, customs, art, culture: all are extremely two-dimensional. It is particularly apparent in the arts that this sensibility has been flowing steadily beneath the surface of Japanese history … [Superflat] is an original concept that links the past with the present and the future.” (Murakami, 2000: 9)

Superflat is a concept and theory of art created by the contemporary Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami. The Superflat (2000) exhibition in Tokyo marked the launch of this new aesthetic which took contemporary Japanese art and identity into a globalised milieu of critical thought. The exhibition, which was curated by Murakami and subsequently travelled to the United States, featured the work of a range of established and emerging artists drawn from art and commercial genres in Japan. As an essential part of Murakami’s political strategy, Superflat was always designed to travel globally. An elaborate, bilingual catalogue Super Flat

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