A “Spellbinding” Takashi Murakami Exhibition Is Coming to AGNSW – and Tickets Are on Sale Now

If you don’t know Takashi Murakami by name, you’ve most definitely seen his work.

The Japanese artist has worked with fashion designers, K-pop bands and rappers. He’s lent his artwork to famous albums such as Kanye West’s Graduation and Juice WRLD’s The Party Never Ends. He’s responsible for one of the most photographed handbags of the 2000s, featuring Louis Vuitton’s LV monogram in multiple colours. And he’s launched a range of T-shirts with Uniqlo and Billie Eilish, adorned with his signature animated flowers, to name but a few projects.

Opening in December, a major Murakami retrospective – spanning 30 years and more than 150 works by the influential artist – is coming to the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). Six months out from the show, tickets have already gone on sale.

“[Takashi] doesn’t see any boundary to what art can be,” says Melanie Eastburn, senior curator of Asian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). “If a challenge catches his imagination, he’ll run with it.”

Eastburn and the AGNSW have a longstanding relationship with Murakami, who is often compared to Andy Warhol for his ability to bridge fine art and pop culture. In 2019, the gallery commissioned him to create a painting inspired by the mythic beings of Japan’s Edo period, as part of its Japan Supernatural exhibition. The large-scale painting featured a rainbow-eyed feline yokai (supernatural being) surrounded by samurai.

“We didn’t know it at the time, but that painting changed the direction of his art,” Eastburn says. “He’s trained in Japanese painting and has a PhD in nihonga painting, but it was working on that commission that made him look more at ukiyo-e printmaking (a traditional woodblock printing process), which has developed considerably since then.”

The 2026 show charts three decades of his career, including his early characters like Mr DOB, created in 1993 (sometimes interpreted as Murakami’s alter ego) and Kaikai and Kiki, created in 2000 (who represent innocence and mischievousness). Plus, Murakami’s signature Superflat aesthetic, a postmodern art movement founded by the artist.

Murakami’s paintings, sculptures, video and installations will fill the Nelson Packer Tank, the Ainsworth Family Gallery and the Naala Badu building.

One of the works that Eastburn is particularly excited to share is a 2023 painting called Judgement Day, a sprawling 25-metre-long, three-metre-tall masterpiece. “You could do an exhibition that was just that painting and it would be enough,” she says. “It’s spectacular.”

Another highlight is a dark room of four paintings representing the cardinal directions of Kyoto. “There’s a phoenix, a dragon, a turtle and a tiger. I want each room to have a different feeling, and for each one to be a memorable visceral experience.”

There’ll be brand-new commissions too, especially in the tank space. “There are various concepts being explored, but it will be quite spellbinding. He really wants to create somewhere that’s joyful and almost a bit of a wonderland.”

Murakami will be in Sydney in December for the opening weekend and a string of events connected to the new exhibition. “He is someone who becomes interested in lots of things and takes them to the fullest extent of possibility, no matter what it is,” says Eastburn, who has visited Murakami’s studio in Miyoshi, about an hour outside of Tokyo.

The studio operates 24 hours a day, with hundreds of employees across his wider company Kaikai Kiki Co Ltd. “He sometimes equates it to more like a film studio,” Eastburn says. “They breed giant stag beetles, and look after endangered Japanese turtles. It’s a fascinating place.”

Takashi Murakami is part of the 2026-27 Sydney International Art Series, which includes Philippe Parreno: 5 Moons at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, opening on November 21, 2026.

The Takashi Murakami exhibition will be exclusively presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from December 5, 2026 to July 18, 2027. Tickets are on sale now.