MORIMURA YASUMASA

The works of art Morimura reinvents are mainly by European male painters and often depict women as a subject matter-two points for which the canon of Art History has widely been critiqued. His work challenges both the Eurocentrism of Art History and pop culture, as well as the male gaze in the depictions of women, and comments on several facets of identity, including race and gender:

‘I was trying to leap across binaries of categorisation—masculine and feminine, East and West—as well as ideas such as the feminisation of the East, Asia becoming synonymous with woman, the feminine mystique. I began playing around with tropes of what is perceived as sexy and exotic to the West.’—Yasumasa Morimura (Artforum, 18^th October 2018)

Morimura’s appropriations of canonical works span back to the Renaissance, and the Spanish and Dutch Golden Ages, as well as the more recent art history of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Despite being incredibly rich in attention to detail, Morimura’s creations also offer a glimpse of humour: Blue Dress in the Afternoon (1989), for example, which is based on Diego Velázquez’ Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress (1959), depicts a princess in a rich blue gown. However, upon closer inspection, the little girl in Morimura’s image seems to have a five-o-clock shadow.

In Hand-Shaped Earring, part of the series ‘An Inner Dialogue’ with Frida Kahlo which took 10 years to complete, Morimura wraps himself in a Louis Vuitton scarf, which can be read as a satirical take on the commercialisation of the revolutionary and her work in contemporary pop culture.

Courtesy Reflex Amsterdam