Big Metaphor: Takashi Murakami Meets Louis Vuitton
Brian Zhao Zhong
Would you ever expect that
a Japanese pop artist would be able to persuade a general audience to purchase
the product of a French based high fashion brand? The response to this
question, will be mostly negative because the inner connection of these two
entities just too hard to find. Generally speaking, when a customer thinks
about fashion, they tend to visualize a front cover of magazine featuring tall,
skinny models to sell the product. Also, when people perceive animation, they
tend to deviate its content from any materialistic culture. However, this paper
is going to tell you that it is possible for an animation to upsell a luxurious
handbag. Specifically, contemporary Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami and
French high-end fashion brand, Louis Vuitton, working together to produce a
legendary line of product, and the success that came out of the video that
Murakami composed to promote the collection.
The thematic subject of
this paper is going to take you to the magical kingdom of rhetoric and look
everything in a rhetorical lenses; in which, this paper will argue that Takashi
Murakami as a rhetor, is able to successfully apply the rhetorical situation
into his construction of the artifact (promotional short film); if artifact
film is like a metaphor, Louis Vuitton would be the tenor and Takashi Murakami’s
animation would be the vehicle. In a rhetorical study setting, we are going to
mostly explore Murakami’s persuasion technique and analyze how he constructs
this metaphor. Before we perform any analytical procedures, it is essential to
have some background knowledge.
This collaboration took
place almost eleven years ago, as Marci Kwon put it this way “In the year of
2002, Murakami rocketed to prominence with the help of Marc Jacobs, the
creative director of esteemed French fashion hour Louis Vuitton. Jacobs
commissioned Murakami to design a limited edition series of handbags, which
combined the artists sense of color and character with Vuitton’s iconic LV
monogram”(Kwon p.46). The short film seemed to be a byproduct of the
collaboration; however, it is not the case. Because of the short film it
established a more explicit connection for pop art and fashion as Foss refers
to as the “commonplace” in the metaphor criticism, its prominent place in this
entire campaign is nonpareil. Thus, the collaboration film cannot be underestimated.
The collaboration short
film is both an image and narrative-driven video taking place in an “obsession
with manga and animation” (BBC 7:52). Specifically, the storyline of the film
followed a simplistic path. There are the two main characters – a young girl
who is standing at a busy Tokyo street outside of a Louis Vuitton store, and
the Panda monster who came directly from the magical land of “Superflat”.
Murakami shot this animation in a third person angle that is placed inside the
animated store of Louis Vuitton. The girl is texting and wondering around to
check if her friends are coming or not. Suddenly, she accidentally drops her
cell on the ground, and that is the moment when Murakami’s famous monster
figure shows up. Murakami’s animal-like monster first picks up her cellphone
and tries to fool her by faking the intent of returning her phone. When the
girl tries to get back the phone, Panda monster eats her phone disarming both
the girl and audience’s expectation; after the initial shock, the girl becomes
angry and starts to punch the monster. Monster is smiling the whole time
without any verbal communication. Key point occurs after a few punches – the
monster eats the girl as well. While we are still wondering about this odd
moment, the girl is on her way to the wonderland of “Superflat” and Louis
Vuitton. After going through a LV monogram path, she stepped into a hyper
animated space where everywhere the colorful Louis Vuitton logo is seen. There
are more animated characters such as small elfin-like angel and gigantic
mushroom that can blow the “LV” logo wind. The girl traveled through the space
without gravity, which is a clear deviation from the real world. She
experienced something dashing and magical. By the time her experience
approaches the end, she finally finds a military colored hand that is arranged
like a LV logo. The logo is created by military colored arm with a palm at the
end, and the phone is in one of the palm. After retrieving the phone, she
continuously travels through the space while taking some pictures. She caught
the Panda monster bamboos. Then sends a multimedia message to all her friends,
and receives an enormous reply on how they don’t believe she gone through this.
With the smile of the little elfin-like angel, she transforms quickly back to
the same place before where she was eaten by the Panda monster. At the
meantime, her friends come and grab her, and right before she leaves the front
of the Louis Vuitton store, she opens her phone, there is a piece of bamboo leaf
and picture of Panda monster where it concludes the entire film.
Upon finishing the
description part of the film, there are a couple instances that are noteworthy.
First, the aesthetic appeal that came through the film is sturdy and unique, as
an audience, we are merged into the animation as well. In other words, the
dashing, magical experience is not only for the little girl, but also for us to
taste and grasp. Second, the odd moment is compelling and the narrative is
making great sense here. It all seemed that this short film itself has set up a
great premise, a fundamental challenge for us to dive into in terms of the
study of rhetoric. In this paper, we are going to employ four major different
kind of rhetorical criticism, which include, classical, narrative, ideological,
and conceptual.
We start off the video by
applying the classical criticism that is introduced in the rhetorical criticism
reading. First, the overarching telos is
to increase both branding awareness and popularity. Aside from the telos, this paper previously did not elaborate what the
commonplace really is. In fact, the telo leads us to think of the commonplace: commerce. Louis Vuitton would be
easy to consider commerce because they are in the luxury retail business.
However, Takashi Murakami is one of the artists who achieves the artistic and
commerce level at the same time. As Kwon confirmed that, “a look back at what
can now be understood as the millennial art world’s decadent period reveals an
overlap between art and commerce that is unprecedented in its degree and
pervasiveness. On the forefront of this exploration is art star Takashi
Murakami, who has gathered tremendous amount of fame with entities such as
luxury goods conglomeration Louis Vuitton” (Kwon p.27). Based on the commonplace
of commerce to link Murakami and Vuitton, the denotative meaning out of the
video is trying to say that Louis Vuitton is like a piece of Murakami animation
art, they are both sellable. Couple things that this artifact video is trying
to sell: magical experience with Louis Vuitton space and the aesthetic
appreciation of an art.
With a more concrete
definition of “commonplace”, we continue our discussion of classical criticism.
The use of ethos, pathos and logos
are quite apparent. This film as a whole is
demonstrating ethos because the
animation character from “Superflat” is the iconic creation from Takashi
Murakami and “LV” monogram print is the most iconic, identifiable image from
Louis Vuitton. If we consider the characteristics inside the video, their ethos is more synthetic and artful. Together, both Louis
Vuitton and Takashi Murakami kept a consistent style in presenting their
character; they minimized the traditional differences and synthesized, embraced
their characteristics into one cohesive piece. The pathos, on the other hand, is the most obvious.
Interestingly enough, we mentioned that there are no words spoken in the
context of video, all of the emotions are coming from those animated
characters; they share anger, happiness and some anxiety. Specifically, little
girl is angry because the “Superflat” Panda monster picked up her cellphone and
wouldn’t return it; she is happy because the magic world between Louis Vuitton
and Murakami is pretty and everything seems dashing; it brings out the anxiety
of reality check for the school girl when she is teleported back to the street
after her adventure. However, the anxiety can be transferred to the audience
who watch this short film. Preciously, the little girl’s experience triggers
the anxiety of real world audience to purchase the collaborated product simply
because customers might want to experience the luxurious goods shown in this
creatively constructed form of animation/pop art. Lastly, the couple odd
moments can be consider as logos
of the video since some of the incident does not follow the general audience’s
expectation. We call it “Murakami” logic, It all starts when the “Superflat”
monster eats the girl (transforming her into another world). However, the
strange use of logos is making
sense in the context of this artifact because Murakami’s genius setting of
animation film rather than real film contributes to the video as a whole, as a
gateway of introducing the magic world of “Superflat Monogram”.
Not only is Murakami able to persuade his audience to believe in this metaphor by his great use of “Murakami logic”, persuasive emotion and characteristics from both inside and outside of the video, but also, in terms of a narrative criticism, Murakami is a great storyteller in that he constructs a great layout for audience to grab the centurial theme of magical experience. His short films have a great sense of narrative “adherence. The reading conjunction between Coleman and Foss offers a new method to criticize and analyze artifacts; they offered the theory from Fisher and Burke, called narrative approach (criticism). Among three different types of narrative approach, Burke’s ratio-narrative approach, also known as the pentadic criticism, primarily focuses on the crucial elements within the artifact itself. Murakami’s work can be best analyzed in five dramatic elements mentioned by Burke:
Not only is Murakami able to persuade his audience to believe in this metaphor by his great use of “Murakami logic”, persuasive emotion and characteristics from both inside and outside of the video, but also, in terms of a narrative criticism, Murakami is a great storyteller in that he constructs a great layout for audience to grab the centurial theme of magical experience. His short films have a great sense of narrative “adherence. The reading conjunction between Coleman and Foss offers a new method to criticize and analyze artifacts; they offered the theory from Fisher and Burke, called narrative approach (criticism). Among three different types of narrative approach, Burke’s ratio-narrative approach, also known as the pentadic criticism, primarily focuses on the crucial elements within the artifact itself. Murakami’s work can be best analyzed in five dramatic elements mentioned by Burke:
Act: dashing adventure through Louis Vuitton and world
of “Superflat”.
Agent: “Superflat” animation character, Panda monster, elfin-like
angel, little girl
Agency: cellphone
Scene: busy Street of Tokyo and “Superflat Monogram” space
Purpose: little
girl retrieves her cellphone while experiencing an adventure.
As Burke mentioned in the
process of crafting analysis, there are 20 different systematic pairings for
ratios that are crossed in between these five primary terms. In this
case, Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton focused mostly in act, scene, agent and agency. When we focus on agent-scene, the relationship between these two terms are in a cause-effect
relationship, Murakami employed his “Superflat” character in an artistic real
Tokyo setting, agent enabled him
to transform the scene later on, into the world of “Superflat x Louis Vuitton”.
Meanwhile, agent-scene also
offers a platform to further introduce the act. The scene-act relation also impacts one another because of the scene that Murakami
creates he is able to initiate the act in the video, which is the dashing, adventurous experience. Lastly, agency-scene worked together to create the advertisement image,
because the agency is cellphone,
the video is able to use cellphone as a device to trigger the audience into the
adventure scene, it formed a
familiarity for the audience to keep the object matter in mind so that
everything else makes more sense. Here, both Murakami and Louis Vuitton insert
their symbolic image into it and make the most aesthetic appeal out of the
video.
The five elements from
Kenneth Burke not only worked with each other, but also ensured the narrative
probability and fidelity as Fisher mentioned in his essay regarding the two
tenets narrative “adherence.". This artifact/video has
Murakami’s animation theory and genre, it can be taken into any context, and he
kept a consistency within this video in comparison to his other artwork. The
narrative probability of this artifact “makes sense” because of his consistency
throughout it remaining as “Murakami logic” rather than everyday logic.
Although the classical and pendatic approach did not mention too much about
metaphor itself, the major argument of this paper is still concerned that
Murakami, as a rhetor developed this metaphor of: Louis Vuitton is like a
refined art piece in world of animation, it is worthy to buy. The classical and
pendatic approach is used as an analytical tool to demonstrate why this
metaphor worked.
As we dive into the study of metaphor, the subfield of
metaphor simile concerned the fact that the comparison is explicit. By containing
the world “like” in the metaphor itself. However, if we look into this simile
more closely, it is not the fact that Louis Vuitton and Murakami’s animation
really are alike, but rather, He applied the method, as we referred to
Ideological critique. Murakami’s work in this particular video fits with two
terms that Stoner and Perkin argued, this rhetorical critique method: culture
hegemony result in a marginalization and the application of legitimization. The
Japanese pop culture is reflected in every inch of the video, which offered a
platform for the audience to connect, whether it is the busy, chaotic street of
Tokyo or the classic flip-style cellphone used in 90s, they are the dominant
elements that the audience around the world relates to in their unique culture
identification.
Above all, the art form itself, further exemplifies this iconic Japanese pop culture. However, as a part of the collaboration, Louis Vuitton: a high-end fashion brand appeared less culturally dominant in the video, they just solely provide the logo. In other words, Louis Vuitton’s own culture had been marginalized because of this unique animation form and the way they present their products. But still, Louis Vuitton is the main participant of the collaboration regardless of this imbalance. There are many odd moments in the video that will never make sense without knowledge of Murakami’s “Superflat” theory; he is able to legitimize those odd moments with his creation of “Superflat” characters. The logic behind this legitimization is that he quietly set up the assumption that humans are not animated characters and they are not prone to “crime” like eating one’s cellphone and the girl. People tend to ignore and forget the real world ideology and implicitly agree with Murakami’s ideology as audiences enjoy the video. As previous analysis has argued, he had almost perfect ethos, pathos and logos yet the narrative made sense and was persuasive to the audience, he is able to insert these ideologies to ensure this dashing experience both inside and outside of the video: audiences enjoy the video itself and also willing to purchase the collaborative product.
Above all, the art form itself, further exemplifies this iconic Japanese pop culture. However, as a part of the collaboration, Louis Vuitton: a high-end fashion brand appeared less culturally dominant in the video, they just solely provide the logo. In other words, Louis Vuitton’s own culture had been marginalized because of this unique animation form and the way they present their products. But still, Louis Vuitton is the main participant of the collaboration regardless of this imbalance. There are many odd moments in the video that will never make sense without knowledge of Murakami’s “Superflat” theory; he is able to legitimize those odd moments with his creation of “Superflat” characters. The logic behind this legitimization is that he quietly set up the assumption that humans are not animated characters and they are not prone to “crime” like eating one’s cellphone and the girl. People tend to ignore and forget the real world ideology and implicitly agree with Murakami’s ideology as audiences enjoy the video. As previous analysis has argued, he had almost perfect ethos, pathos and logos yet the narrative made sense and was persuasive to the audience, he is able to insert these ideologies to ensure this dashing experience both inside and outside of the video: audiences enjoy the video itself and also willing to purchase the collaborative product.
Lastly, we focus our
attention on the Murakami use of icon. The definition of the conceptual
oriented criticism is “focused on drawing from case studies to ‘take in’ more
meaning for a given concept” (McKerrow & St. John). The interpretation of
this concept “icon” can be understood as something that stands out in the video
that is illustrated by images, yet those images are comparable to our
preconception. In other words, the manipulation of all the different unique
elements really showed off in within the image of the video rather than the
storyline or content. What makes this video iconic is the fact that it
developed a contrast between what we expect and what we actually experience
when two different subjects collide with each other. As Jacobs puts it, “we
approached the idea of the ‘icons’ of Takashi and the ‘icons’ of Louis Vuitton,
being the monogram, and we worked on creating a brand new canvas that had the
spirit and presence of Takashi and the history of Vuitton” (Kwon p.47).
The main contrast between
Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami is that they are totally differently
categorized. Takashi Murakami is a contemporary Japanese pop artist that based
his creation in the form of animation, no matter the sculpture, painting or
other kind of art, he remains consistent on presenting it with his animation
rather than any other art form; Louis Vuitton, a high-end French born brand is
focused on luxurious products such as luggage, handbags with their high price
and recognizable logos.
If people are still not
able to associate commonplace established for these two different brands,
consider the collaboration film, Murakami is able to create sets of new images
to intertwine the differences and challenge our preconceptions. Specifically,
Murakami abandoned the traditional approach to advertisements of the fashion
industry, he didn’t hire some photographer along with some skinny tall model to
sell their collaboration product, in which, audiences think traditionally as we
mentioned in the beginning. Same case with Murakami’s animation, we thought the
best the collaboration can do is perhaps have Murakami draw a Louis Vuitton bag
to put on his “Superflat” animation character. However, the film proved us all
wrong. During the collaboration video, he only uses the Louis Vuitton iconic “LV”
logo. He put the logo in the background of “Superflat” experience and often
zooms in – a LV hand grabbing the girl’s cellphone, and zooms out again to
reinforce those movements when audience see the logos. He is able to give vivid
color into the logo so that it does not look plain and boring as in previous
advertisements, it is actually the first time someone has tried to insert some
colors into the traditional luxury logos. Besides the logo, Murakami still is
able to retain his artistic insight and keep animation as a platform to offer
this collaboration film. Murakami created the animal Panda to indicate his product
of collaboration; Panda inherited other “Superflat” animation characteristics.
However, it only appeared on the Louis Vuitton product rather than sold as an
individual artwork. Even though the collaboration film is not saying commerce
explicitly, the film is targeted heavily on the customer/viewer eyepiece rather
than a piece of art with no objective.
To finally evaluate and
prove the success of this metaphor/collaboration, we carefully examine the
audience reception from several sources. First, the article from Harvard
Business Review “Louis Vuitton in Japan” by Justin Paul and Charlotte Feroul
confirmed the success of this collaboration. They mentioned, “Takashi Murakami
had result in smash hits, boosting Louis Vuitton’s sales in the market” (Paul
p.14), “The strategy appeared to be a huge success for the leading luxury
conglomerate LVMH, as the Murakami line increased Louis Vuitton’s profits by 10
percent” (Paul p.11). The research exhibit demonstrated that two of six of
Louis Vuitton’s bestselling handbags in Japan were designed by Murakami (Paul
p.20). Second, just simply focus on the Japanese market, the book by Radha
Chadha and Paul Husband examine the Asian’s love affair with luxury product,
they said “a staggering 94 percent of Tokyo women in their 20s own a Louis
Vuitton piece”, more interestingly, “for Louis Vuitton, the undisputed leader
of the cults, it’s possibly a case of too much love – at one point an estimated
88 percent of Vuitton’s global sales came from Japanese consumers”(Chadha p.2).
In another article where Japanese scholar Shin’ya Nagasawa mentioned, “based on
data published in Luxury Import Brand Market in Japan 2008(Yano Research
Institute Ltd. 2008), 6 years after the collaboration production, Louis Vuitton
held the top spot for net sales of single brands for FY 2007 with sales of
around 165.0 billion yen” (Nagasawa p.17), it is approximately 1.762 billion
U.S dollar today; yet that is almost six years ago from today. Just a quick
look at Murakami’s product as well, Thomas Loose in his article “Superflat and
the Layers of Image and History in 1990s Japan”, he points out that “Murakami
constantly refers to his refusal of any distinction between art and commodity,
and part of his aim is simply to sell a lot (and he does, with annual sales in
the billion of U.S. dollars)” (Loose p.95).
Murakami has often being
referred as the “Asian” Andy Warhol, as Hebdige mentioned in the collection
book “Murakami”, he said, “both Warhol and Murakami gained attention in the art
world by positioning themselves as outsider-savants not so much hostile as
oblivious to the boundary-making rituals and etiquettes that continue to
protect institutionally sanctioned contemporary art from contamination by other
forms of production and exchange. Both are seen as radical levelers…
art/commodity, art-world/fashionista hierarchies. Both appropriated business as
an art form and adopted cooperate branding strategies ” (Hebdige p.20).
Followed by the
success of the collaboration, Murakami is not the only artist who collaborated
with Louis Vuitton. Just earlier last year, Louis Vuitton collaborate with
another legendary contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, it was a huge hit
again since the Kusama style is rapidly different than Murakami’s animation, as
Marc Jacobs refer to be the “ her hand paint Speedy bag” (Jacobs 0:20) and “polka
dot would eventually meet Monogram” (Jacobs line 2). In the future, it would be
great to look at this collaboration in a rhetorical lens. As for now, upon
finish discuss this artifact, we should have a comprehensive understanding on
this big metaphor between Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton.
References
Murakami, Takashi. "Superflat Monogram." YouTube. YouTube, 15 Feb. 2010. Web. 07 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwmsXEncv-0>
Paul, J., & Feroul, C. (2010). Louis Vuitton in Japan.
London, Ontario, Canada.
Chadha, R., & Husband, P. (2006). The cult of the
luxury brand: Inside Asia's love affair with luxury. London: Nicholas Brealey
International.
BBC. "Takashi Murakami – Birth of Superflat." YouTube. YouTube, 08 Mar. 2011. Web. 07 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE2VgKy5DUc>.
Nagasawa, S. Y. (2008).
Marketing Principles of Louis Vuitton-The Strongest Brand Strategy.
Looser, T. D. (January 27, 2010). Superflat and the Layers
of Image and History in 1990s Japan. Mechademia, 1, 1, 92-109.
Kwon, Marci. "Modern Art Asia Issue 1: Japan, Modern
Art, and Tradition [Edição Kindle]." Modern Art Asia Issue 1: Japan,
Modern Art, and Tradition EBook: Majella Munro, Gwyn Helverson, Marci Kwon,
Yayoi Shionoiri, Ming Turner, Asato Ikeda, Laura Warne, Kristina Kleutghen:
Amazon.com.br: Loja Kindle.
ModernArtAsia.com, 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.amazon.com.br/Modern-Art-Asia-Issue-ebook/dp/B008QI6HG4>.
Murakami, Takashi, Paul Schimmel, and Dick Hebdige. ©
Murakami. Los Angeles: Museum of
Contemporary Art, 2007. Print.
Jacobs, Marc. "Behind the Collaboration with
Kusama." Louis Vuitton, 27 July 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.louisvuitton.com/front/#/eng_US/New-Now/articles/Behind-the-Collaboration-with-Kusama>.
No comments:
Post a Comment