Artist Research - Yasumasa Morimura

Yasumasa Morimura is a contemporary Japanese appropriation artist. His work involves inserting his own face and body into the portraits of historical artists and celebrities. In his consideration, photography is about depicting the object, nevertheless, self-portrait is a form of showing oneself. Therefore, the object within the portrait has the self initiative within the photography, the audience is not the only live factor. In Yasumasa Morimura’s work, he put his face onto the historically famous artworks, especially on western women’s face. Therefore, he changes the object that is being look at to himself. He gives himself the opportunity to have various identities and puts himself into different contexts. He also questions the standard of beauty as his face is shown on these women’s bodies.

I found his work really interesting, because they are reinterpretation of the existing works, as if they are ready made arts. Also, the modern world is constructed with photography. However, since there are lot of tools to manipulate the photography itself, it is hard to verify whether the photography is the truth itself. Hence, there are artists who use their social media to create their self-portraits with an invented attribute. Similar to the way in which Yasumasa Morimura is doing, he does not refine himself in own identity, but numerous open possibilities.

The idea of incorporating the old artwork into something new is also a good idea in the present age, since a lot of things have already been created. I am a fan of collage, since I am not a really good drawer. However, by using the collage, I am able to draw different elements together to create a new artwork, and directly convey my information. Therefore, the use of photoshop also gives the opportunity to combine a lot of things together to create something new. Hence, I feel like Yasumasa Morimura’s work gives me some inspiration for my own art practice.