For its third annual exhibition, after Richard Prince, Henri Matisse & Jonas Wood, Nahmad Contemporary teams up with Perrotin to present sculptures by Takashi Murakami until 12 March at Saanen Airport’s Tarmak22.

A veritable global sensation, this particular artist not only exhibited both in galleries and museums the world over, but sales of his works at auction testify to unbridled fascination of collectors and the public.

Created by the Tokyo-born and educated artist as his alter ego over three decades ago, this cartoon-like character, Mr DOB, reappears unstintingly with painfully honest humour in a number of different guises since then. A play on words devoid of substance, the acronym DOB remains a clarion call for absurd Japanese humour whilst underscoring Murakami’s longestablished interest in finding meaning in the midst of meaninglessness.

Constant are the round head and two large ears that together form the letters D, O, B. representing the obsession of Japanese popular culture with cute, childlike figures which Murakami interprets as Japan’s infantilisation and subjugation to American culture after WWII. In late 1941, the United States of America belatedly found herself in WWII after a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. Not until the only use, to date, of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict, did the Empire of Japan surrender in late summer 1945, effectively ending the war. Since t hen, the postwar American dream degenerated into a nightmare.

For us in the roaring twenties of the 21th century, these sculptures echo the highly-competitive dialogue between Orient and Occident at porcelain manufactories in the 18th century. Foremost among these on this continent, Meissen, near Dresden in Germany, heralded the new found taste for the rococo that had begun to develop with in particular their figures based on the commedia dell’arte. Whilst scholars might well ascribe commedia dell’arte to the Carnival in Venice, it is rather the centuries-old confluence of Orient and Occident prevalent in that city coupled with the exaggeration and the ‘extravagance of emotion’ that here unite past and present.

ALAN NAZAR IPEKIAN

Continuing until 12 March Saanen Airport’s Tarmak22

Monday to Sunday 11am to 6pm

NahmadContemporary.com

Perrotin.com