Yasumasa Morimura
Japanese, born 1951
Mysterious Illusion of KAINOSHO
INV-2737
Yasumasa Morimura
Japanese, born 19512023/24
Mysterious Illusion of KAINOSHO
Yasumasa Morimura Japanese, born 1951 →Date
2023/24
Medium
Inkjet print
Dimensions
120 × 75 cm (47 1/4 × 29 9/16 in.); frame: 162 × 98.8 cm (63 13/16 × 38 15/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Purchased with funds provided by Pam Phillips Weston and Roger Weston
For nearly four decades, Yasumasa Morimura has used props, costumes, makeup, and digital manipulation to transform himself into celebrated subjects from art history. In this work, Morimura poses as Kainosho Tadaoto (1894–1978), an openly gay painter from Kyoto best known for self-portraits dressed in women’s kimonos. Morimura echoes Kainosho’s meticulous attention to traditional Japanese makeup and dress and frames the image against a beautiful patterned backdrop that recalls the scroll paint-ings for which Kainosho earned his initial acclaim.
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