Yasumasa Morimura’s work seems rather simple but consists of a deeper message behind them. The concept of rebranding is to influence a person’s perception about something though alterations and implementing modern interpretations. Perhaps that’s what Morimura does so well because his trademark for placing himself into famous portraits creates new iterations that cause viewers to ask what is being represented. Morimura has patented his theme of bridging the gap between Japanese art and westernized culture.
His expedition into this art-type stems from 1985, when he put himself into a portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. One category of his work revolves around paying homage to various artists such as Frida Kahlo and Leonardo Da Vinci. Nonetheless, with his recent interpretations of immersing himself into the bodies of women in western culture, he begins to advocate the theme of gender and sexual expression. He wants to create a sense of discomfort and curiosity within a viewer, especially though his takes as Marilyn Monroe and Mona Lisa. He isn’t afraid to challenge social norms and think out of the box. When seeing something like Olympia, I’m immediately captivated by its background. Morimura is renowned for intricate details to form the setting of his paintings, as he included snippets of Starry Night in his rendition of Van Gogh. For this in particular, he rebranded his original Futago from 1988 and characterized this as a representation of the internal and external changes in the past thirty years. What catches my eye is not his naked body, but rather that he’s rocking pink high heels. In my opinion, I think this demonstrates that he feels content with his body and people should able to freely express who they are. It’s common for people to be self-conscious of their bodies and even more common for them to feel closeted due to their sexuality. Morimura’s usage of makeup and a female demeanor presents a statement to the world. He positions his head so that he’s able to make eye contact with all viewers and absorbs them into the message that they should always be accepting to everybody and make the world assemble around different beliefs and perspectives. There’s the presence of a man with a look of disgust in the frame directly behind him, but the fact that Morimura is at an orientation that “ignores the haters” and lets the man take a good look at his butt shows the support he has for who people are.