Yasumasa Morimura: Appropriator of Images, Cultures, and Identities

Japanese contemporary photographer Yasumasa Morimura (b. 1951) appropriates Western imagery from art history, film, and media, recreating the scenes by inserting his own male Asian body into them. The scholarship regarding Morimura often acknowledges one feature of the works, emphasizing the artist’s use of appropriation and the feminist quality of the work or its post-colonial nature. Such an approach does not address the multi-faceted quality of his works or offer a holistic look at the dialogues that the images create. This paper addresses those issues by combining the critical approaches to his work through the study of photographs from his Daughter of Art History series. Employing post-colonial, feminist, and queer theories, three case studies focusing on Morimura’s photographs and the commentary created by them are included. The first case study analyzes Morimura’s Portrait (Futago), in which the artist reimagines Edouard Manet’s famed Olympia, commenting upon many post-colonial and feminist issues. The second case study examines Morimura’s Doublenage (Marcel), a photograph recreating Man Ray’s photograph Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy, focuses on issues such as gender theory and queer theory. The third case study investigates Morimura’s interest in the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, exploring the realm of self-portraiture, gender theory, and the identity crisis that both faced. Through this approach to the artist’s work, it is seen that all of these theories are deeply connected to Morimura’s work due to his identity as an Asian male artist living in a post-colonial era.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art/Art History

Grantor dc:publisher

Bowling Green State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Gorman, Caitlin Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hershberger, Andrew

• Art History
• Asian Studies
• Yasumasa Morimura
• Appropriation
• Contemporary art
• Photography
• Post-colonial
• Feminist
• Self-Portraiture
• Identity
• Gender performance
• Edouard Manet
• Marcel Duchamp
• Frida Kahlo

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: some rights reserved. It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons license. Specific terms and permissions are available from this document's record in the OhioLINK ETD Center.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1363520942

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:bgsu1363520942