Coming to prominence in the otaku-led Tokyo of the 90s, Takashi Murakami has been called Japan’s Andy Warhol for his marriage of art and commerce. Like many Japanese children of the 60s, comics, gaming culture and Western pop changed his life. As the inventor of the Superflat aesthetic and curator/manager of the Kaikai Kiki stable of artists, Takashi’s unmistakable mutations of manga monsters and kawaii girls have appeared in museums and galleries worldwide – while a commercial partnership with Louis Vuitton has extended his influence and presence to the atelier and shopping mall, providing him with a worldwide presence in the unlikeliest of places. Often copied but never bettered, Takashi is almost single-handedly responsible for the explosion of contemporary Japanese art in the 21st century.