Turning Japanese - Kirsten Dunst as Murakami's 'Akihabara Majokko Princess'

Kirsten Dunst is something special. She has the talent and the individual mindset that many are looking for: directors, photographers, artists. She knows how to play the Hollywood game, but doesn’t always stick to the rules. She recently embodied a real life anime dream for Takashi Murakami and McG. And she shone in diva glitz for Mario Testino’s shoot for V magazine.

The actress kicked off her career at an early age and was successful from the word go. There are hardly any films that don’t see her acting alongside the industry’s legends, and not a single film that sees her fade to the background. She is pretty, but different, she is a perfect actress and is instantly recognisable.

Artist Takashi Murakami let himself in on yet another collaboration – as he had done previously for Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs – this time he created the ‘Akihabara Majokko Princess’ clip with Terminator director McG. As a part of the Pop Life exhibition at the Tate Modern Gallery, Kirsten danced across the Akihabara geek district of Tokyo: she became the signer of The Vapors’ 1980s super catchy hit ‘Turning Japanese’.

In keeping with the exhibition’s subtitle, ‘Art in a Material World’, Takashi blurs the boundaries between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ art, bringing elements of pop culture into the more formal museum atmosphere. “I believe this is a new style," says Murakami. Kirsten Dunst is the Anglo-Woman, who magically transforms into Princess Majokko.

She undergoes a transformation of a different nature for Magazine. Described as the beautiful blonde, who became an icon of her generation. A muse. If you are Kirsten Dunst, you can be everything. In Mario Testino’s she is a diva from a foregone age. In delicately post coloured and blurred images she embodies a woman worthy of Hitchcock’s silver screen. More on this in the GoSee News.

Speaking of the silver screen, her new feature film All Good Things will be out soon. We can’t wait.

The ‘Pop Life: Art in a Material World’ exhibition with the Kirsten-Anime-Clip, as well as wondrous pieces by giants of Pop Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, is on show at Kunsthalle, Hamburg until 9 May, when it will travel onto Canada. The show provides a view of the ever increasingly commercialised society we live in.

Akihabara Majokko Princess
Pop Life: Art in a Material World

Hamburger Kunsthalle
Glockengießerwall
Hamburg
until 9 May 2010

National Gallery of Canada
380 Sussex Drive
Ottawa
11 June – 19 September 2010