Murakami and fame

Admittedly, this is a late post to an otherwise bland blog, but a post is a post. I am across this article earlier in the day: Amid the Bust, the Boom Boom and I couldn't help but wonder about the state of the contemporary artist. In the article, Guy Trebay goes on and on about the place that a pre-gallery opening party takes place, those in attendance, and what they say to one of the seemingly uninitiated. To quote from the article: '“Do you know who you are talking to?” a Murakami acolyte will ask you in a tone that is equal parts astonishment and horror.' The fact that there is an art opening for Murakami's work is irrelevant to those almost cultish fans. He has been elevated to iconic status and has been subsumed into the consumerist, paparazzi glitz that has gobbled up the best of celebrities (I am still not convinced that Britney Spears isn't a crazy bitch that just happened to get picked out of a crowd at walmart). Contemporary Art at its heart is about subverting the expected, the understood, and the proper. This subversion seems to be at its purist when it takes places in the underground, away from the prying eyes of those who simply cannot comprehend "it". Despite his fame, it does seem a little counter-cultural to make a statue in the anime style of this: