This Valentine’s Day, visitors to Takashi Murakami’s massive survey at the Al Riwaq Exhibition Hall in Doha are in for a treat. No, it’s not chocolate. It’s a massive blowup effigy Takashi Murakami! This portrait  of the artist will greet visitors at the entrance to “Murakami – Ego,” his first show in the Middle East. But wait, it gets better.

The six-meter humanoid balloon deifies Murakami as a giant, meditating Buddha. According the press release, the show — and its decidedly un-Buddhist title — reflects the artist’s desire to create “a dialogue with [his] own ego,” while celebrating “global cultural dialogue and exchange…[and] forty years of diplomatic relations between Qatar and Japan.” 
Blow-up dolls for peace? Something tells us Madame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won’t be implementing this method of diplomacy anytime soon.

In addition to this super-masturbatory piece of sculpture, the show also includes a massive, wrap-around landscape painting commemorating the recent natural disasters in Japan. Murakami has modestly compared this work to Picasso’s ”Guernica.”

— Chloe Wyma

Tags: LOL, Takashi Murakami