Murakami Hits The Macy’s Day Parade

by Paddy Johnson on September 3, 2010 · 1 comment

Takashi Murakami's Kaikai and Kiki

My parents will be pleased. Murakami’s well known characters Kaikai and Kiki will be seen in helium balloon form this November at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so for the first time in ten years I will be attending the parade with them.  From the New York Times: 

If familiar figures like Kermit the Frog and SpongeBob SquarePants are simply too jejune for you as their larger-than-life, helium-filled representations wind their way toward Herald Square on Thanksgiving morning, the organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have added two new entrants to the 2010 lineup that they hope will appeal to more erudite tastes. Kaikai and Kiki, two weirdly cute (or is that cutely weird?) characters created by Takashi Murakami, the Japanese pop artist, are being turned into larger-than-life balloons that will mix it up with the traditional cartoon stars and corporate trademarks that will populate the parade’s 84th annual run on Nov. 25, the parade’s producers said on Thursday.