RTFKT x Takashi Murakami x Nike Air Force 1 Low 'Murakami DNA'
Colorway: Multi-Color/Chlorine Blue · Style code: FQ4050-900 · Release date: April 24, 2023 · Price: $3619 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: RTFKT x Takashi Murakami x Nike Air Force 1 Low 'Murakami Drip' (FQ4051-900)
Murakami trained in Nihonga, the traditional Japanese painting discipline, took a doctorate in it, and then walked away from the art world it belonged to. The theory he published in 2000, Superflat, argued that Japanese visual culture carries a long inheritance of flat, two-dimensional imagery running from historical painting into manga and anime, and that the distinction between high and low culture had collapsed alongside it. His smiling flowers, the motif most people know him by, he has connected to repressed collective trauma from 1945 rather than to cheerfulness.
His commercial work started early and never stopped: handbags with Louis Vuitton from 2002 at Marc Jacobs' invitation, the cover and an animated video for Kanye West's Graduation in 2007, album artwork for a long list since.
This Air Force 1 came through RTFKT, the digital studio Nike acquired, with which he had already produced an avatar project in late 2021. That is why the shoe is titled around DNA rather than around a flower. It released in April 2023 at $600.