The Palace of Versailles has invited leading Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for a two-month retrospective later this year. The exhibition, running from September 12th to December 12th, will be Murakami’s first major retrospective in France, following fellow pop artist Jeff Koons who showed at the palace in 2008 and Frenchman Xavier Veilhan in 2009. Murakami looks to display his sculptures and paintings in 15 rooms in the palace’s Hall of Mirrors and the apartments of the King and the Queen. Since controversy provoked by the Jeff Koons exhibition, the palace, a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy, is being careful to avoid displaying works with pornographic or morbid connotations that might offend some visitors.
