許多人都認得日本藝術家村上隆的花花標誌，他又曾與時尚品牌如 LV 合作，可說世界有名。然而他昨日卻貼出影片，指自己經營的畫廊 Kaikai Kiki 因武漢肺炎，面臨破產。
村上隆是知名藝術家，其創作風格結合當代藝術和日本動漫文化，稱為「超平面 （Superflat）」。他可說是藝術市場寵兒，曾與 LV、Comme des Garçons 及 Supreme 等品牌合作，也曾撰寫書藉如《藝術起業論》，名言藝術是其賺錢手段，教藝術家如何在藝術市場致富。
然而在這部 15 分鐘的影片中，村上隆表示，武漢肺炎嚴重打擊其業務。他說其經營的畫廊 Kaikai Kiki 面臨破產，正在進行的一些創作項目亦要終止。其中一項受影響的創作，就是他的科幻電影 Jellyfish Eyes Part 2。村上隆指，這部電影已經製作 9 年，是他的小兒夢。然而由於財政問題，不得不停止。他說他會將此項目由長片改為短片發布。
Jellyfish Eyes 第一部，於 2013 年在日本和美國上畫，藝術家本人自言「商業上不算成功。」
影片發布後，一些他的擁躉稱對消息感痛心，又提到武漢肺炎期間，村上隆曾有一些慈善創作，如為 Supreme 設計 T 恤義賣。
不過，藝術界其實亦偶有消息，指村上隆是大花筒。一篇 Artnet 報道並提到，村上隆的作品在藝術市場數量過多，可能導致市場對其興趣減弱。而他大量與時裝品牌合作，或許正與藝術市場成績不佳有關。
今次不是第一次有市場寵兒藝術家發消息稱財困。早前 Damien Hirst 接受訪問時，亦曾透露自己一個周末可賺 3 億港元，但財政狀況仍然不佳。
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This spring, I streamed a series of cooking show of a sort on Instagram Live. I’m sure those who watched them were utterly confused, but I was trying to buoy my own thoroughly sunken feelings through these streamings. With the sudden swoop of COVID-19 pandemic, my company faced bankruptcy and I had to give up on a number of projects, the most symbolic of which being the production of my sci-fi feature film, Jellyfish Eyes Part 2: Mahashankh. For nine long years, I had persevered! It was a film that was to realize my childish dreams! The enormous budget I poured into this project, as well as my tenacious persistence, put a constant and tremendous stress on my company’s operation for the past nine years. But at the same time, I was able to endure various hardships because I had this project. Faced with the current predicament, however, I was persuaded by both my business consultant and tax attorney that I must, simply must try and drastically reduce our business tax by filing the film’s production cost as tax-exempt expenditure. To that end, I am going to produce and release a series of videos to publicly announce the discontinuation of the film’s production. (To be clear, this is an entirely legitimate procedure—I’m not trying to evade tax!) These videos will be released against the backdrop of our struggle to avoid an economic catastrophe, but perhaps it may have a cathartic effect on the viewers/my followers to see the story of stupid Murakami’s failure. Long story short, I’m a silly human being for whom the moment of bliss is when I am thinking my truly childish sci-fi thoughts. I don’t know how many episodes the series will end up being, but a series it will be, so please come along with me on this journey for a little while.
A post shared by Takashi Murakami (@takashipom) on Jun 30, 2020 at 8:02am PDT
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