Takeshi Murata

In the past few years, Takeshi Murata has shifted the focus of his work from videos that riff on glitch aesthetics and psychedelia to radically static, digital images that approximate photographs. The first series in this new body of work consists of still lifes that use classical composition strategies to present decidedly contemporary objects, while his latest works are comprised of mysterious, computer-generated architectural spaces housing an assortment of late-capitalist items.

Elements in these still-life images include: a red balloon, iPod earbuds, a telescope, a bottle, gummy worms, a bicycle, a red sun, a houseplant, a paper coffee cup, and electronic keyboards. In their original forms most of these objects are more or less generic, either due to trends in design (the earbuds) or utilitarianism and ubiquity (a bottle). Embedded within these images is an index of the regime of consumption that has influenced Murata and his generation; many of the objects are part of an era that has yet to be deemed tasteful. VHS boxes, pornographic movie posters, and samurai swords may appear as part of teen-nostalgia pastiches, but they have yet to be mined for philosophical and aesthetic significance. And yet, the latter is exactly what Murata is doing, without irony or shame. Furthermore, Murata's act of re-rendering and unbranding many of these objects, without ironic distance, sets apart the completed works from the mainstream East Coast Pop tradition.

Also absent here is narrative, which the artist's previous videos achieved through motion and digital noise. With these images, Murata is not asking an audience to "get it" or to fill in anything; rather, like another artist of stillness, Giorgio Morandi, he is presenting visual tableaux to be observed and contemplated, or as the artist has stated, he wants to "express something but not demand anything". 
Icy clarity is achieved through a canny use of digital tools. With each work Murata begins with a pool of about one hundred 3-D images, which (along with their surrounding environments) he either renders from scratch or loosely models from clip-art files. He removes any obvious commercial signifiers in order to make the arrangement at once more personal in its investigation of form and less relatable in its denial of obvious points of reference. Working like a still-life photographer, Murata then lights the composition.

The ultimate artwork, however, subverts its digital origins by manifesting only in print. And to enhance that experience, Murata inserts textures and lighting effects that are only visible when printed at full size. With that, an unusual loop is completed: A digital simulacrum of 3-D space is re-presented as a tangible thing, no longer mutable but instead a finite, tactile piece - an object - like those it depicts, with a life and a culture awaiting engagement.

Dan Nadel