DOB Totem Pole 2000

Takashi Murakami’s *DOB Totem Pole*, presents a stack of the artist’s cartoonish characters. I can imagine him in his studio, surrounded by vinyl toys and anime magazines, thinking about a flat, graphic style that pops. The surface is super smooth, making you want to touch it. The lines are crisp and clear, like a print, but there's something handmade about the color choices, a deep blue and white set against the grey background. I wonder about this stack of figures, like they are balancing off each other. Each character is making different gestures, maybe about the range of emotions we can feel in a single day. One’s all wide-eyed wonder, another's got a huge, maniacal grin. Murakami is definitely in conversation with Warhol and Lichtenstein, but adds this layer of cuteness and dark humor. It’s like he’s inviting us to find the playful, unsettling stuff in our own lives.