I'm very sad to be compared with Warhol and The Factory, because I have no drugs, you know. We have no drug culture in Japan! Maybe it's because our attitude toward labor is totally different.
Takashi MurakamiI would like to live to 120, because conceptually, people can survive to 120. Every 20 years, it changes. So maybe, in the next 20 years people can go to space. I donโt know what the next revolution will be. I want to watch.
Takashi MurakamiWe want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don't completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.
Takashi MurakamiGalleries in the West have probably been looking for exoticism. That's the reason my paintings initially sold well, I think. And then once they started selling, people said my works were very detailed. They may have represented something Japanese to them.
Takashi Murakami