Murakami Versailles
This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Murakami Versailles at Château de Versailles, France, the artist’s first major retrospective in the country. Describing his extensive intervention within fifteen rooms of the former royal residence as “my Versailles, manga style,” Takashi Murakami transformed visitors’ experience of the building’s interior and gardens through a multipart installation of characteristically effervescent sculptures and paintings that juxtapose his reflections on contemporary pop cultural iconography with the French Baroque splendor of their environs. “I am the Cheshire cat that welcomes Alice in Wonderland with its diabolic smile,” he writes, “and chatters away as she wanders around the Château.”
Murakami Versailles features 125 color plates documenting the twenty-two works in the exhibition, including seven sculptures that had not previously been exhibited. The works are accompanied by extensive sections devoted to sketches, diagrams, instructions, notes, and color charts, as well as photographs of their production and installation. A foreword by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, an interview with Murakami by Philippe Dagen, and essays by Jill Gasparina and the exhibition curator, Laurent Le Bon, offer further insight into the artist’s monumental works.
Publisher: Éditions Xavier Barral, Paris
Publication date: 2010
Contributors: Jean-Jacques Aillagon, Philippe Dagen, Jill Gasparina, Laurent Le Bon, Takashi Murakami
Designer: Éditions Xavier Barral, Paris
Format: Cloth hardcover in dust jacket
Dimensions: 10 × 13 1/4 inches (25.4 × 33.5 cm)
Pages: 256
Language: English
ISBN: 978-2915173-72-7
