Art of the deal, and the deal as art

The always enjoyable Giant Robot includes in its latest issue (number 45) a Q&A with Takashi Murakami, which of course I read with great interest. The interview was conducted by GR co-honcho Eric Nakamura, and in places it’s a little odd; I guess Murakami is an enigmatic guy, but I wish there had been some follow-up and clarification on some of his answers. (A question toward the end — “Is it important for you to create a legacy with your art?” — is answered: “What would be ideal is if copyrights became stronger — like Disney — through national ordinance, and to be able to survive economic dangers, changing executive positions, and the outbreak of internal conflict.” What’s that supposed to mean?)

Anyway, some of what Murakami said was not only enigmatic, but pretty interesting and (to me, at least) amusing. He out-Warhols Warhol when asked about what he learned by collaborating with Louis Vuitton and answers that it was the contract he and LV’s president devised. Not the things that were the result of that contract (the LV-Murakami handbag being, presumably, a prominent example) — the contract itself.

After the contract was signed, we both felt – we both agreed – that we had started something worthy of toppling the ‘art’ that had been built up by Duchamp and Warhol. While I can’t disclose the contents of that contract now, I have a secret expectation that if the seal were to be broken in 100 years, the contract itself would go down in art history as the most important piece of art I ever made.