Versailles Palace to welcome Japan artist Murakami

(AFP PHOTO PHILIPPE MERLE)

The Palace of Versailles has invited leading Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for a two-month retrospective later this year, the public corporation headed by Jean-Jacques Aillagon said Wednesday.

The exhibition, running from September 12 to December 12, will be Murakami's first major retrospective in France, and he comes after American Jeff Koons at the palace in 2008 and Frenchman Xavier Veilhan last year.

Murakami, who was born in Tokyo in 1962, will 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.