Mr. Dob

Mr. Dob is a work of Takashi Murakami going back to 1992.

Mr. Dob takes for Takashi Murakami a value of Autoportrait. But this character initially was born in a particular context: he appeared at one time when artists like Jenny Holzer or Barbara Kruger, which in their work enormously exploited the word and its message, were introduced to the Japan. This types of works had a great success in its country when Takashi Murakami began. The concept of Mr. Dob was born in relation with these artists when it realized that by aligning words without relationship between them, it could make with the manner of Jenny Holzer.

Murakami initially created luminous boxes which carried the words “dobojite, dobojite, oshamanbe*”, but its main aim was to show that the art preached by these American artists was not appropriate at all to the Japanese, that it was necessary to cease this imitation which turned them into ridiculous.

Takashi Murakami thus preferred to move towards the gags that it describes itself as stupid: this choice appears for him to be more honest. Mr. Dob initially appeared in the form of a simple figure with two ears (left carrying the letter D, line the letter B, the face forming O) Dob being the abbreviation of the gag “ dobojite, dobojite, oshamanbe ”.

He became a character only thereafter and thus created a tempting image and Kawaii (nice) which marks the Japan in its daily newspaper and its imaginary. Through him, it was in particular a question of rendering comprehensible with the artists and the Japanese critics who had to be found another means of expression. Initially received with much reserve, Mr. Dob becomes thereafter a popular success which with the force of an advertizing image .

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