3-Meter Girl

"I think the Japanese male sexual complex originated in the two- dimensional world--animation, games and so on--which then transferred to small three-dimensional sculptures. But before my sculptures Miss Ko, 1997, and My Lonesome Cowboy, 1998, it had never been represented life-size."--Takashi Murakami

Standing nine foot tall, this hyper-sexualized female figure pushes Takashi Murakami's absurdist compositions to the max. Balanced precariously on a pair of red stilettos, the scantily clad woman is struggling to stay upright, the weight of her pendulum-like breasts causing her to topple forward. Her heightened sexuality is intensified by her coquettish stance--feet apart, knees together and her right index finger pointing provocatively towards her mouth. A magnificent mane of tousled hair rises up above her head, acting like a triumphal crown and adding to her already considerable stature. She appeared to be dressed as a French maid, the traditional black and white uniform clinging to her ample frame as her large breasts try to burst through the diaphanous fabric. The three-meter high sculpture is fabricated in highly polished fiberglass, reinforced plastic and steel and is executed to such a high standard of finish that it closely resembles a computer animation and is hard to believe she is not two-dimensional.
Murakami conceived the idea for 3-Meter Girl after talking to an author of comic books about current trends in Japanese anime and manga comics among young fans. He learned that the newest heroic figure was a giant woman--a large female figure, overtly sexual--who resolved what Murakami described as a "mother complex" in its readers. These powerful women, often female bosses as well as other matriarchal figures, tower over submissive men in a provocative interplay of power and sex. These characters are particularly popular among a sub-culture of Japanese society known otaku, a group of people who have retreated from the day-to-day world and live out their lives through their obsession with TV, comics, online gaming and Internet pornography. Their lack of social interaction often means their view of the world becomes distorted, defined by what they see and watch online and unchecked by the normal conventions of everyday human interaction. "The word 'otaku' is usually translated as 'geek' or 'nerd,' but it's more precise meaning is steeped in the particularities of Japanese society and language. Employed by postwar Japanese housewives, the usage was adopted by the fans--all right, call them geeks--who became obsessed with the minutiae of a particular bit of popular culture. Isolated in their individual homes, these youths shared a passion for the television programming--Astro Boy, Ultraman and so forth--that expanded rapidly in the 1960s. They organized around their fetishistic fascinations to form otaku subcultures, whose members come together periodically in large conventions to discuss, exhibit and trade the objects of their highly focused affections. The typical otaku is a young male, and some of the manga and the plastic figures are explicitly sexual, often blatantly pedophiliac; even when they aren't, the otaku tends to relate to his collection with caresses and ministrations, as to a girlfriend (A. Lubrow, "The Murakami Method," New York Times Magazine, April 3, 2005). As such, 3-Meter Girl becomes a metaphor for this nightmare premonition of the future, where human interaction has been curtailed and human desires and prejudices run rampant, unchecked by the conventions of society that exists only online.

Murakami derived his distinctive visual language, a concept he described as Superflat, from both the modern and historic worlds, from today's and yesterday's culture in Japan. He searches for an authentic artistic voice for the new Japan, propelled by his own training in the Nihon-ga painting tradition. Intriguingly, the development of the art of Nihon-ga was itself a response to Western cultural diffusion, a form of ultra-conservative art that had been consolidated as a reaction to the increasing influences from abroad that were already flooding the country. In the wake of the Second World War, the relentless momentum of American imports began to wash away many vestiges of traditional Japanese culture that had survived this cultural invasion. Old values, old styles, old subjects were either effaced, or the form and content of the new art forms were adopted.
Despite its beguiling simplicity and titillating aesthetic, Murakami encompasses a rich profusion of cultural meanings and allows latitude for challenging interpretations, most notably when it is examined and traced within the framework of traditional Japanese culture and social background. In this way, Murakami leads us to look afresh into the nature of Japanese pop culture, uncovering its aesthetic value and cultural origins from a manifestly contemporary perspective.