Yasumasa Morimura Osaka, Japan, b. 1951

Each work is conceived through a detailed performative process: Morimura constructs sets and props, designs costumes and makeup, photographs himself, and completes the image through digital composition. The resulting works blend elements of painting, photography, and scenography, forming layered meditations on the nature of the image and mechanisms of visual representation.

International recognition came with his acclaimed self-portrait series, in which he embodies figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Goya, and Dürer, as well as icons of popular culture including Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli, and Greta Garbo. His approach combines irony, precision, and conceptual clarity, transforming familiar images into reflections on the mechanisms of visual myth-making.

A special place in Morimura’s practice belongs to the series Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo, where the artist creates his own interpretation of the legendary Mexican painter. Morimura’s Frida is not an imitation but a composite image — an imagined persona born of admiration, introspection, and performative transformation.

“As I am being inspired by you, Doña Frida, I drink in what I like to think of as your essence so as to create a Frida of my own, in my own mind’s eye… In that fantastic sphere, the various elements of Doña Frida and myself mix into a muddle, a chemical reaction occurs, creating this imaginary Frida of mine.” – Yasumasa Morimura

Morimura’s works are represented in major museum collections worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Hammer Museum and J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles); Museum Ludwig (Cologne); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid); Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.