The Brooklyn Museum is showing the work of Takashi Murakami through July 13. This is the same exhibit that caused an uproar in Los Angeles because it included a Louis Vuitton boutique filled with expensive goods touched by the whimsical designs by this Japanese Andy Warhol.

I absolutely love Murakami’s art. At the same time, I’ve been ranting lately about how people should buy original art instead of expensive handbags and shoes. So now I am a little confused.

From Roberta Smith in the New York Times:

When the show made its debut last fall at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the shop was criticized for blurring the already fuzzed line between seemingly functional and nonfunctional luxury goods (i.e., art). But actually it’s an ingenious key to the Pandora’s box of Mr. Murakami’s art and stuffed with questions of art and commerce, high and low, public brand and private expression, mass production and exquisite craft.