Virgil Abloh and Takashi Murakami: "Our language is pop culture"

Six heures trente, Paris est éveillé. Devant l’entrée de la galerie Gagosian, on décharge deux camions. À l’intérieur, une quarantaine de personnes s’affairent, à la suite de VirgilHASbloh et de TakashiMurakami. Ce soir ouvre l’expositionTechnicolor 2 (1), le fruit de leur collaboration, synthèse réussie entre l’univers pop du Japonais et le graphisme street de l’Américain, dans un jeu de fusions et de superpositions qui marque bien notre époque. Le meilleur exemple en est le tableau Times Nature : la fleur rieuse bariolée - qui est devenue la signature deMurakami - est littéralement collée à quatre flèches formant un carré, le logo de Virgil. Toutes les œuvres se conforment à ce même dispositif, les acryliques grand format, les pièces multimédias, la grande structure semblable à une serre, en polycarbonate et métal, dont l’entrée est bloquée par une énorme fleur rieuse noire. La vue d’ensemble transmet un sentiment de joie enfantine, comme si chacun des deux artistes s’était amusé à surenchérir sur le travail de l’autre. Pourtant, a priori, tout les séparait : l’âge (dix-huit ans d’écart), la géographie, la culture, la langue, le physique… Ils se sont pourtant trouvés, ce qu’ils nous racontent ce matin autour d’un cappuccino (pour Takashi), d’un expresso (pour Virgil) et de croissants.

TakashiMurakami, born in 1962, is at the origin of the superflat artistic movement, a fascinating concept which, in its own words, marks "the convergence between the different forms of art and crafts, and the multiplicity of points of view".Translated in Western terms, this means thatMurakami, capable of using the refined techniques of Nihonga painting to paint a comic strip that will end up on a t-shirt (or vice versa), makes no distinction between high and low culture,Between large and small culture.Collectors love it because they surprise them.It allows them to go beyond Western cultural and aesthetic values to install a Louis Vuitton bag at the level of a museum sculpture: "I think it is anachronistic today to try to define what are the fine arts.It is rather interesting to observe the contamination between crafts, design, technology, visual arts, "he said during a opening in Tokyo.

VirgilHASbloh precisely embodies the intuitions of his elder.Architect by training, long artistic director of Kanye West, he is the creator of the Off-White label, the very pop and graphic clothing brand which appropriates without inhibition all the signs and styles of the time, and causes hysteriaAmong the millennials.Hyperactive, Virgil, recently appointed artistic director of Louis Vuitton Homme, always finds time to do the DJ as to sign the most eclectic collaborations - Nike Sneakers, Ikea furniture - and now intervene on the artistic level: if theAdjective Supercol did not exist, it should be invented for him ...

Madame Figaro.- Do you remember your first meeting? VirgilHASbloh. - C’était au Japon, il y a huit ou neuf ans, quand j’étais le DA de Kanye West, et Takashi faisait la couverture de son albumGraduation… En voyant tous les gens travailler dans ton studio Kaikai Kiki, j’ai vraiment compris l’importance d’une large organisation pour bien mener les projets !

TakashiMurakami.- Do you remember ?I knew you were an architect and I asked you if you were going to draw the Kanye shops ...

V.HAS.- The real click between us came later, when we saw each other in the United States.

T.M. - En te retrouvant à Chicago en train de préparer une exposition auMusée d’art contemporain, je me suis dit que tu étais plein de surprises ! Je savais que mon travail pour Louis Vuitton t’avait inspiré et j’ai eu envie de te proposer une collaboration.

No Lost in Translation, in other words cultural barriers, between you?.HAS.- Our language is pop culture.Maybe because I come from Chicago.Black kid, son ofHASfricans, as far as I remember, I only spoke pop, I was breathing pop: this is the only culture that I could do mine and transform.This is the new language that Takashi created with Superflate that connected me to him ... and today this language scrolls on Instagram.

T.M.- Here, Virgil speaks global!It is all the time posting and interacting, communicating with everyone ...

Do you think that fashion is the place to be today?.HAS .- Fashion is at the crossroads of different disciplines, it is an art form that affects everyone and that arrives to people - we must all dress, right?This is the largest global communication tool.

T.M. -Même si j’ai souvent travaillé pour les maisons de mode, j’ai toujours essayé de faire une distinction entre mon travail d’artiste et le reste.Meet Virgil and see his work opened my eyes to the potential of fashion.A painting, a sculpture, are confined in a gallery or at home.This is the only way to enjoy it.HAS contrario, un vêtement, on le porte sur soi, on le sort dans les rues,on s’exprime avec… C’est grâce à toi que j’ai compris cela.

En vidéo : VirgilHASbloh, belle personne

Concretely, how did you work together?Is it true that everything was going through WhatsApp?.HAS.- It could have been out of fax, if it still existed ... Yes, we exchanged a lot of WhatsApp messages, but no matter the means, in the end it was a conversation.We have exceeded the notions of physical or digital space, we have created the one where to exchange our ideas and work, without worrying about the place, nor the time ... because we work at any time!

T.M.- Yes, but not at the same speed!You are too fast for me.It must be age ... We have different ways to lead the ideas and get to the point: you, you surf the wave of your time.HASlors j’écoute tes idées et j’essaye d’y amener mon art, ma technique.

Do social networks affect your gaze?Do you think they are making a new world taste?And if so, which one? V.HAS. - It is a magnifying glass that enlarges reality and, probably, affects people's behavior.Mais les médias du passé jouaient le même rôle, ils façonnaient leur époque.

T.M. - Dans la musique par exemple, le côté visuel d’une pochette d’album était important, puis, avecMTV, le vidéoclip a pris le dessus ; maintenant, ce sont les réseaux sociaux qui font d’une chanson un hit… Le facteur qui détermine la réaction du public a changé.Maintenant, il faut créer le buzz ! Dans cette collaboration, je me suis moins concentré sur l’objet et sa signification que sur le lien entre la mode, l’art, le public et comment générer le buzz.Ma génération d’artistes - Damien Hirst inclus - voulait aller à contre-courant, mettre en discussion le goût dominant, revendiquer le mauvais goût comme élément nécessaire de la pratique artistique… Nous l’avons fait.The next step is to create buzz in art.HASvec Virgil, j’ai trouvé un terrain vierge : la communication.Because we, artists, think objects, but are very bad in this area.This is the new border I want to explore.

V.HAS.- The fact that the networks give everyone the power to decide means that there is no more hierarchy of taste, we do not know what people will love ...

Since everything is at your smartphone range, everything is visible all the time ... What is still surprising you?.M. - Your first Louis Vuitton parade (June 21, note) was really great!Everyone only talked about this moving embraces between you and Kanye ... This is something intense and true, this moment that becomes communication, the storytelling that everyone is looking for!

V.HAS. -Merci ! Ça me touche tellement.This is the reason for my collaboration with you: it represents my values.And if people think it's just joint work, they didn't understand anything.For me, it is the meeting of two artists who together create something that they could never have done separately.Two generations who meet and look at the future.The whole land should collaborate like that.

In this time of instant distribution and recovery, where is the border between an original idea and its copy?.HAS. - I don't care about copyright problems, I leave that to my lawyers.The question of the originality of an idea arises differently: I am a creative, and if I had to think in terms of intellectual property I would lock myself in a prison.

T.M. - Lors du défilé Louis Vuitton, Virgil a utilisé des lunettes qui ressemblaient à celles que Nigo (le fondateur de la griffe Bape, NDLR) avait déjà sorties… J’ai repensé au moment où les ordinateursHASpple sont apparus : soudain, même un gamin inexpérimenté pouvait faire du design ! Du coup, tout le concept de copyright est devenu vague.Ma génération s’est bien posé la question de la propriété intellectuelle sur la création, mais, maintenant, je réalise intentionnellement des œuvres difficiles à situer et j’y mets mon nom ; Nigo faisait de même avec Bape… J’ai toujours essayé de créer une œuvre similaire à d’autres justement pour questionner le concept de copyright.For Virgil, it's different, it is younger, and everything changes with the internet.

V.HAS. -Yes !Inspiration always has its point of reference.The question is: how far is this point visible from the work?When it comes to my creativity, I always answer that Duchamp is my lawyer.

Why this title Technicolor 2? V.HAS. - For my part, I started to do research on color - which influenced my last Louis Vuitton parade - and I thought Aumagicien d'Oz: the beginning is in black and white, then it isa chromatic explosion, which helped to anchor the film in the spirits. On peut faire du branding avec la couleur ! Dans ma tête, leMagicien d’Oz était numéro 1, d’où Technicolor 2.

T.M.- Make a title with the number 2 is to push people to look for what is before, it causes curiosity.I like curiosity to be the trigger.

(1) Technicolor 2, until July 28, at the Gagosian gallery, in Paris.gagosian.com.