"Yasumasa Morimura: Through the Looking Glass" by Louis Lu

In a fluorescent-lit subway car, sometime in the early 1990s, Audrey Hepburn sat perfectly poised. Illuminated by the harsh overhead light, her legs elegantly crossed, a slender cigarette holder between her gloved fingers, she wore a classic pearl necklace and meticulously styled hair. Amid this mundane commuter setting, she engendered an unlikely scene—the surreal juxtaposition of a “Hollywood star” with bleakly mundane surroundings.  But this image is not a lost frame from Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) showing Holly Golightly in commuter transit. The protagon ist is Yasumasa Morimura, in one of his countless transformations for the 0ne
Hundred M's Self-portraits photo series (1993-2000), exhibited in "Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman: Masquerades" at Hong Kong's M+ museum. For an artist who has spent decades masquerading as cultural icons and historical figures, from van Gogh to Marilyn Monroe, Morimura in person has an unlikely
demeanor. Recently he appeared almost reticent, fidgeting slightly in the gallery space as he awaited another round of interviews. Settling into our conversation at M+, I found the artist's quiet reserve an interesting contrast to the theatrical phocographs that surrounded us.

American soldiers were everywhere in Osaka when Morimura was born there in 1951. Western art, too, flooded into postwar Japan like Coca-Cola and jazz records, mostly in the form of reproductions plastered across magazine pages and living rooms throughout the country. Morimura's fascination with the new imagery began in
the musty art workshops of his high school. He was attracted not just by the pictures in art books, he told me, but by something more sensuous-the distinct smell oflinseed oil from European paint sets. "The scent of oil paint was so foreign, so exotic to me then-it drew me in completely and made me want to paint with oils."
 

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