The end of the gallery is devoted to several works by Yayoi Kusama, who gained notice with flashy poppy paintings, installations, and performances in New York in the 1960s and here seems a transitional figure. Shoes (green) (1997) is a pair of glittery green strappy ladies’ shoes sprouting blobs that resemble sweet potatoes or worms. It’s like a dream from the Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City.
Takashi Murakami, one of the paramount figures in Japanese art today, is represented by a flat, cartoony 2002 painting of fanged space stations floating atop a blue-and-cream camouflage pattern and a brown 2003 purse spotted with pink cartoon flowers. Murakami has been a ringleader for a group of youngish artists working in a cute style called kawaii in Japan. A dreamy diaristic 2003 Aya Takano painting depicts a big-eyed, big-lipped girl standing under a crescent moon in a sheer nightgown, her long hair curling in the wind. Chinatsu Ban’s 2005 sculpture Fish Eyes — Sixth of Ten Brothers is a cartoony baby-faced elephant that leaves a pile of cartoony poop. It’s irresistibly cute.
Related:
Persian gulf, Dream on, Desperately seeking shoulder pads, More 
- Persian gulf
Another “Festival of Films from Iran” opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Bush Administration still hasn’t started bombing Tehran.
- Dream on
Imagery that springs from the mysterious depths of the unconscious holds a powerful fascination for artists, and the quirky world of dreams has inspired countless works of art.
- Desperately seeking shoulder pads
In the glorious fall of 1980, young photographer Amy Arbus approached the Village Voice looking for freelance work.
- Naughty by nature
Landscape has inspired artists as varied as the romantic 19th-century Hudson River School painters and the macho 20th-century Earth Artists.
- Coming to your senses
This heady, two-part exhibition examines the influence of technology on the experiences our bodies are having in this world.
- In search of modern art
Despite offering many pieces that haven’t been seen in decades, the Museum of Fine Arts’ current “Degas to Picasso” is no blockbuster, and it doesn’t pretend to be.
- David Hilliard at Carroll and Sons
It's not every day that a guy like me gets to enjoy a photographic investigation of daddy-boy relationships. . . . well, outside of a naughty format.
- ''Mirrorball #1: Fresh Tracks''
Reality TV has not killed the video star.
- Fabulous faker
It was a sublime scene, even though the seven-foot-tall painting was cracked, threadbare in places, patched in others, and dulled by a gray-brown murk.
- Squares in Paris
Thomas Eakins was one of thousands of ambitious young American artists who flocked to Paris after the Civil War. Paintings from The Museum of Fine Arts's "Americans in Paris" exhibit
- Flora, fauna, and the female figure
The Art Nouveau movement of the late-19th/early-20th century distanced itself from the mass production of the Industrial Revolution with elaborate, one-of-a-kind works made from unusual materials.
- Less
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Museum And Gallery
, Media, Poetry, War and Conflict, More
, Media, Poetry, War and Conflict, Painting, Visual Arts, Cultural Institutions and Parks, Museums, Museum of Fine Arts, Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Murakami, Less
