Château de Versailles, until 12 december. Phone : 01 30 83 78 00

Two Murakami are famous. Born in 1949 in Kyoto, Haruki Murakami is the cult writer who draws on tales of old Japan and the metaphors of Greek tragedy to bring about the unreal in the commonplace. Born in 1962 in Tokyo, Takashi Murakami is the artist who has digested the popular world of manga, dream pop art Andy Warhol. Nothing in common between these two artists, if not their nation marked by the bomb, their ancestral culture nourished by ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") and their creative thirst. And yet, as the Japanese occupation of Manchuria lurking in the unconscious of the hero of the chronicles of the bird spring, there is the same taste of ghosts and deadly clouds in the artist called "The King of Cute". Fake gay fellow with his round face and his glasses at the Geo Gearloose, Murakami hides all darkness under his palette as a jaunty, childlike makeup Hello Kitty (Happy Dokuro spectrum Yellow, 2000).  Because "the idea of death and the continuity of the artist" the nagging, Murakami has finally unveiled in a series of self-portraits, these moments of truth of an artist if listed. They are alternately cute (big baby with a tear in the eye, small glacier miniature), grotesque (naked, potbellied and sheepish, between its two stars erotic, My Lonesome Cowboy and Hiropon) squarely manga (with a hilarious double Mr Dob, his creature distant cousin of Mickey Mouse) or BD wisely clear line of Tintin (in Japanese tourists to the Eiffel Tower, the rocket's double checkered red and white). It took some time to look differently at these paintings at the finish too good to be manual, the sophistication misleading (paradoxically, manga means "quick sketch" or "image clumsy"). The repetition of motifs, these daisies that laugh, those cohorts of rabbits and white roses which we do not always note the hooks, creating a visual impact as the Americans call the "Power Wall". In Manhattan, we see the full salons on the Upper East Side. His mother, at home, he was visiting exhibitions, and then submitted to the issue by making him write critiques. Otherwise, he was deprived of dinner, he told the Times. No wonder that the hard worker has succeeded brilliantly passing the applied arts in transforming the Monogram Multicolore collection for Spring / Summer 2003 Vuitton (33 colors serigraphy). Amused, the small "art world" was adopted without reluctance this ftandard his arm, like a new binder in the school yard. Very quickly, the collectors are enamored of this phenomenon nippon, both accessible and incomprehensible as a child's drawing. Francois Pinault's first, which was posted at the Palazzo Grassi, from its opening in 2006. His last great fresco in the Palazzo Grassi has dazzled the American artist James Brown by his incredible work of pictorial material. Credit goes also to his two studios. The visit, in spring 2008, one of Long Island near New York, was edifying. In the artistic works, 35 young assistants were busy on the floor in silence on the Japanese slippers, another 15 were working underground in the workshops.For the third consecutive year, the exhibition of a contemporary artist at Versailles is the first major event of school art. After Jeff Koons in 2008 and Veilhan in 2009 is therefore Takashi Murakami (born in 1962 in Tokyo, Japan), the third artist supported by François Pinault, the second (with Veilhan) of the Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin (Koons works, it with the Galerie Jérôme and Emmanuelle Noirmont). Murakami invested the place, according to the process of alternation, a foreign artist / one French course by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the initiator of these events and chairman of Versailles, and Laurent Le Bon,  director of Centre Pompidou-Metz.  If Veilhan had resolved some discretion, Murakami  has chosen the spectacular show. And in this register, there is not with the back of the spoon in gold and plays the card of kitsch. We discover that with the Tongari-Kun installed in the course of the salon d'Hercules : a character polychrome black head of 7 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, which requires looking up to see his, and thus discover the splendid ceiling. Then, a Silver Oval Buddha, smaller (1.35 m) but shiny silver this time, the Lion Yume (The Dream Leo), a sort of "Lion King Sun", all in gold, he, of course, until 'Gold Buddha in Oval - a monumental sculpture, the first to realize that outside Murakami, 5.68 meters tall, glowing gold, the artist does not bend. Add mushrooms cute, lots of flowers everywhere and it is in a sort of Murakamiland which works in 22 (eleven of which are produced for the occasion, and five demonstrated for the first time), gives a good idea of the artist's world, directly inspired by manga. "It is through this way that I came to art," says Murakami. When I was a student I wanted to do manga, like all great creators that time. But as I was not talented enough, I decided to explore themes and more traditional techniques. And it was only when I became an artist could come back to manga working from home. Do not forget that after the Second World War, he lost, Japan was completely devastated. We then sought to develop means of expression easier to read and so the manga is published and became popular. " Unlike Jeff Koons, who, putting his dog in the garden and his portrait in the Salon of Apollon, gave the impression of being at home, Murakami, investing almost the same rooms, seems to be less comfortable. Despite a huge carpet, Untitled (Carpet), and two lamps, Flower Lamp, in the guard room of the king, we feel that more artificial. Probably because in seeking to compete with the more flashy of Versailles, in short by the tone on tone, Murakami was too anxious to show off - the ice. It was in this one, with great Matango Flower, just out fresh and cheerful, a real bunch of candy of all colors that best meets the red chandeliers, marble and glass. Basically, if the kitsch of Versailles is based on history, that of Murakami himself, is not. That's where the rub (and far more than in the controversy over the presence of contemporary art at the castle, as a crime of lese-majesty). Moreover, when asked the question, it does not recognize, in theory, these concepts of kitsch and pop are, he says, "made exclusively of countries that won World War II and where economic damage was less significant. For those who have lost, like Japan, there was no foundation for these concepts arise at once. Still, Murakami puts gold everywhere.The spirit of Versailles.