Superflat

Superflat is a postmodern art movement founded by the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and shaped by manga and anime. It is also the title of an exhibition Murakami curated in 2000. He has deliberately left it without a fixed definition, so that it can keep growing.

Definition

Murakami uses superflat for the flattened forms of Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture and fine art, and for what he calls the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture. In his manifesto he describes super flatness as an original concept of a thoroughly Westernised Japan that links past, present and future. The movement is not limited to contemporary work: Murakami cites Katsushika Hokusai's Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit, of 1830 to 1832, as an example of superflat.

Because the definition is broad, the subjects vary widely. Some works examine the consumerism and fetishism of postwar Japanese culture; others, such as Yoshitomo Nara's childlike graffiti on old ukiyo-e, concern a fear of growing up; others examine the structure and desires of otaku culture. Murakami has also named animators, such as Yoshinori Kanada, whose compositions he relates to Japan's eccentric painters.

Origin

The exhibition Superflat, curated by Murakami in 2000, toured to West Hollywood, Minneapolis and Seattle. The figure sculptor Bome was among its most important artists. Murakami followed it with Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, published with the Japan Society in New York. Artists associated with the movement include Chiho Aoshima, Keiichi Tanaami, Ayako Rokkaku, Aya Takano, Yoshitomo Nara, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Sebastian Masuda and Murakami himself, many of them connected with his company, Kaikai Kiki. American artists have created a hybrid known as SoFlo Superflat.

The movement reached a very wide audience through fashion. Murakami's collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which ran from 2003 to 2015, put superflat colour and characters on bags, jewellery boxes and scarves, and later partners carried his flowers into streetwear. In our reading, this is part of the idea rather than a departure from it: superflat set out to erase the line between high art and commercial image, and the objects in the house sit exactly on that line.

For a collector, the practical result is a field with many entry points. A signed silkscreen, an offset poster in a large edition, a soft vinyl figure and a collaboration bag are all superflat objects, and each has its own conventions of edition, licence and condition.

Key facts

How to identify it in collecting

• Flat colour and line. Superflat images favour flat fields of colour, hard outlines and no single-point perspective.
• Edition and medium. Murakami's prints are mostly offset lithographs or silkscreens in stated editions; read the number and the signature; see our entry on edition numbers.
• Collaborations. Superflat images run across fashion and objects, from Louis Vuitton to streetwear; the partner's own codes date the piece.
• Kaikai Kiki marks. In our handling, Kaikai Kiki goods carry the company's mark, which we read with the licence and packaging.

Where it appears in the collection

A Takashi Murakami Me and Kaikai Kiki silkscreen of 2009, signed, a signed Paradise flower field circular print and a Louis Vuitton and Murakami Superflat silk bandeau show the movement on paper and in fashion. The artist is read in our guide to collecting Takashi Murakami and the meaning and formats of his flowers; his work sits on our Murakami and Kaikai Kiki shelf.

Related entries

• Silkscreen print: the technique behind many superflat editions.
• Louis Vuitton and Murakami, 2003 to 2015.
• Kaikai Kiki
• Offset print
• Monogram canvas

Sources

1. Superflat, encyclopaedia entry. wikipedia.org
2. Japonista, "Louis Vuitton and Murakami, 2003 to 2015", our own article, linked below, for the collaboration dates.

Last reviewed 14 November 2026. The Japonista Curation and Concierge Team, Tokyo, Japan.