Art History, the collection that la Fundación Telefónica presents tomorrow within the framework of PhotoEspaña 2000, is Marimura's tribute to and ironic critical view of Western painting. It serves as a personal "settling of the score" with European and American painting by an Asian artist.

This is Morimura's first individual exhibit in Spain. He is one of the most internationally renowned Japanese creators of contemporary Japanese art, with a large body of work that is recognized worldwide. The exhibit sample is a grouping of various series, those that made him known in the mid-1980's, mostly done through reproductions of masterpiece European paintings. As the exhibit organizer Pilar Gonzalo views it, the author appropriates the West through its images in order to convert them later into his own. Thus, he adapts them to his individual vision and assumes an attitude very characteristic of Japanese culture at the same time.

The artist literally slips into the most representative paintings in Western art, transforming them thanks to a type of omnipresent creator, characterized by impeccable technical skill. Aware of the manipulation, the first thing that the viewer senses is admiration for this artistic mastery.

ASIAN FEATURES FOR WESTERN ART

Morimura affects this interference by inserting his own face into photographic copies of the paintings. Thus, he creates his own capricious art history, and even makes himself an ironic protagonist in it. Through this digital intervention into the models we can see fundamental icons of Western art such as the Mona Lisa, the Nude Maja and Las Meninas (to cite a few examples) take on Asian features by means of Morimura's own face as substitute for each of the famous faces. The artist puts himself in the place, that is, in the iconographic space reserved for the protagonists in European art history, carrying out what the experts consider a personal "settling of the score" with the Western colonizer.

In the opinion of the organizer, Morimura not only criticizes the works of Western art, but he also pays tribute to them. "This series insists on occupying the invading images rather than rejecting them", explains Gonzalo, "and so, endows them with a new cultural use. This is evidence that rather than being critical or subversive, his desire is to inquire within himself, to know himself." On the other hand, it is obvious that the artist also speaks with humor and irony to other important aspects of contemporary artistic discourse, such as the collapse of cultural barriers and the free interchange of influences, while parodying "high culture" and the way people think of art that has been made sacred through history.

His interpretations are comical, grotesque, irreverent and even kitsch. However, as Pilar Gonzalo points out, beyond the visual joke, interest focuses on the constant presence of the artist's face as the banner of his culture. In this way Morimura involves himself personally in the work, using all types of technical resources: from the carefully prepared makeup, wardrobe and set designs to the digital manipulations that eliminate the face of the photographic collage that makes up the final piece.

ART WITH INFINITE NUANCES

The extensive artistic training of Morimura, both Western and Japanese, allows him to imbue an infinite amount of nuance in his work. One notices numerous "winks" to the erudite viewer, ones alluding to biographical issues about the authors of the referenced works, as well as historical or technical details.
But his work is not an easy one, since it spans across an ambiguous dual field: East versus West, artist versus viewer, original versus copy, masculine versus feminine . . . a farce of appropriations and constructions flavored with unique irony.

Some experts have defined his work as "sophisticated fun", yet it is obvious that this attitude goes beyond mere entertainment: Beneath this pretended naivete lies hidden his twisted and ambiguous content. The exhibit's organizer believes that Morimura, who has already exhibited worldwide, is neither an archeologist of art history nor the naïve explorer that some critics present. The iconic exploration also allows Morimua to broaden his world of existential possibilities and in this sense, contends Gonzalo, his work is above all an act of fraternization.

Born in Osaka in 1951, shortly after World War II, the decisive event in the history of his country's relations with the West. His work reflects the contradiction between East and West, between Japanese and foreign cultures and between traditional and contemporary culture.

His education is marked by a distancing from things Western, as well as the influence from China and Zen Buddhism. Nonetheless, this separation does not become radical isolation; rather he absorbs new civilizations' ways and adapts them to his own.

Morimura became world-known thanks to the collection "Art History", part of which will be presented for the first time to the Spanish public in this exhibit. His work adheres closer to the idea of performance than that of a conventional photographic project. In fact, Morimura does not like to be described as a photographer. His work continues in the inherited tradition of American Action Painting and all action art in general.

His work contains frequent allusions to the work, person and talent of Marcel Duchamp and has clear influences from the American Pop artist Andy Warhol.

He has done a large number of individual exhibits and has participated in various collective ones of considerable impact, both in Japan and internationally, as well as international contemporary art events, among them, ARCO.

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Information Prensa: Obdulio Martín Bernal (Phone: 91-584-8996; fax: 91-584-0697;
E-mail:obdulio.martinbernal@telefonica.es and Carmen Mañueco (Phone: 91-584-0424; fax: 91-532-3287;
E-mail: carmen.manuecogrinda@telefonica.es