Yasumasa Morimura, Daughter of Art History (Theatre A), 1990 and Daughter of Art History (Theatre B), 1990Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York City (Image source)
This is for my fellow Art History grad (and post-grad!) Flaneur who pointed out that I only seemed to cover artists from The Canon in my Piece of the Week topic. When I said I detest Contemporary Art, and she suggested someone I did find interesting: Morimura. The first time I heard of Morimura was in my very first AH lecture at uni - Art History B in 2001 (wow! that was so long ago!). A japanese artist, Morimura replicates scenes from art history (such as the one above) or popular culture images using a combination of techniques, and then inserts his own face into them and changes our reading of it.
Daughter of Art History (Theatre A & B) inserts Morimura as the role of the barmaid in Manet's Le Bar aux Folies-Bergere. I won't go into the how or why, but the general art historical reading of the original is that we are an upper-middle class male patron of the bar looking at things for sale - including the bar maid. By casting himself in the role of the barmaid, once the visual joke has worn off, one realises Morimura adds the question of race into the mix of gender and class.
If AH is to be believed, we are drawn into Manet's paintings by our gaze interacting with the characters who gaze back at us. But AH also analyses these works from a predominantly Western Male view. While the feminine/feminist view of art has become vocal, not much was put into the Asian view of AH (although Flaneur is trying to change that!), nor into how the West looks at Asia. Particularly in Theatre B, by getting his male body to mimic that of the weakened barmaid under our gaze, Morimura raises questions about how the West's view of Asia as *feminine*, the femininisation of the Asian male, and also why I refuse to date anyone with Yellow Fever.
Daughter of Art History (Theatre A & B) inserts Morimura as the role of the barmaid in Manet's Le Bar aux Folies-Bergere. I won't go into the how or why, but the general art historical reading of the original is that we are an upper-middle class male patron of the bar looking at things for sale - including the bar maid. By casting himself in the role of the barmaid, once the visual joke has worn off, one realises Morimura adds the question of race into the mix of gender and class.
If AH is to be believed, we are drawn into Manet's paintings by our gaze interacting with the characters who gaze back at us. But AH also analyses these works from a predominantly Western Male view. While the feminine/feminist view of art has become vocal, not much was put into the Asian view of AH (although Flaneur is trying to change that!), nor into how the West looks at Asia. Particularly in Theatre B, by getting his male body to mimic that of the weakened barmaid under our gaze, Morimura raises questions about how the West's view of Asia as *feminine*, the femininisation of the Asian male, and also why I refuse to date anyone with Yellow Fever.
4 comments:
Hmm, I don't know Cal, this painting looks really weird to me. I can't get into the backstory if it's just odd from the outset :S but once again I feel smarter after reading it hehe
I don't like it at all.
Wow Callie - well done on the research. This post gives so many different insights to the paintings.
And yeah - the perception underlying Yellow Fever is so uncool.
Wow! This is SOOO helpful! Thank you very much!
I was doing an art assignment research and this helps a lot!
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