PORTFOLIO:Yasumasa Morimura

Yasumasa Morimura has been working as a conceptual photographer and filmmaker for more than three decades. Through extensive use of props, costumes, makeup, and digital manipulation, the artist masterfully transforms himself into recognizable subjects, often from the Western cultural canon. Morimura has based works on seminal paintings by Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, and Diego Velázquez, as well as images culled from historical materials, mass media, and popular culture.

By Dimitris Lempesis

Yasumasa Morimura, born 1951 in Osaka, studied art at Kyoto City University of Arts and in 1985 made his first avant-garde self-portrait based on an iconic portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. Since then, Morimura has taken iconic images from pop culture, the media, and art history and deconstructed them using costumes, makeup, props, and digital manipulation to make provocative self-portraits. The artist’s works exude playfulness and attest to the artist’s self-described role as an entertainer who wants to “make art that is fun”. Morimura’s work also addresses subtler issues, like that of Japan’s complex relationship with Western culture. Morimura’s work is specifically effective and forceful as a result of his capacity to both mock and provide homage to his reference materials and subjects. The artist made a string of assorted self-portraits following the art and style of Frida Kahlo in his latest and very expensive reproduction. In 1996, Morimura was a nominee for the Hugo Boss Prize. In 1998, Morimura’s selection as an artist of Aperto of Venice Biennale had catapulted his career and brought prominence to his name. Morimura converts himself into familiar subjects with the use of costumes, props, digital manipulation, and make-up. His masterpieces encompass works inspired by influential paintings of such artists as Diego Velásquez (Spanish, 1599–1660) and Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954), and by pictographic sources from the mass media and history. The artist’s reinvention of iconic photographs and art historical masterpieces challenges the associations the viewer has with the subjects, while also commenting on Japan’s complex absorption of Western culture. Through his depiction of female stars and characters, Morimura subverts the concept of the “male gaze”; within each image he both challenges the authority of identity and overturns the traditional scope of self-portraiture.