purse "puku" movement...

[Taro Toporific]

Vuitton's purse in the "puku" movement...

Takashi Murakami, the Japanese art star who was invited by Marc Jacobs to update Louis Vuitton's iconic bags for Spring, and created the single most talked-about accessory of the season...Murakami, a goateed Ph.D., sees his work as part of the "poku" movement, a mix of Pop (po) and otaku (ku), the animation- and comic-driven Japanese youth culture.
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Business masquerading as art
'Where can I get his goods?!?' wrote Kimiko.

Read his interviewand puku profile.

[Steve Bildermann]

He's high art. He's low culture. He's a one-man mass-market

Takashi Murakami is often billed as the next Andy Warhol. Like the American pop art icon, he fuses high and low, pulling imagery from consumer culture to produce visually arresting, highly original work. He is vigorously, ingeniously self-promotional. In the past few years, Murakami has swept across the US and Europe, receiving fawning media attention and exhibiting at big-name museums. Just shy of 42, the charismatic artist even lives and works in what he calls a factory. How much more Warhol can you get?

The Two Faces of Takashi Murakami