User:Birdie357/sandbox

Morimura borrows images from historical artists (ranging from Édouard Manet to Rembrandt to Cindy Sherman), and inserts his own face and body into them.[1][2] He even disguises himself as the principal subjects that appear in the artworks he appropriated; Many of which goes against his racial, ethnic, and gender boundaries as an Asian male because most of the artworks he appropriates have Western subjects, particularly female subjects.[3] He also inserted himself into some of the Western male subjects, and the majority of those works mostly deal with race and ethnicity. Through the use of disguises, he overturns the effects of the male gaze, gender, race, ethnicity, and cultural standards, challenging the traditional methods of portraiture that he alters the original Western artworks by incorporating details related to Japanese culture.[4] For example, in one of his works, Portrait (Futago), he changes the floral shawl from the original artwork, Olympia by Manet, with a kimono decorated with cranes.[4] Because traditional portraits were mostly Western dominated, Morimura's combination of crossing multiple boundaries at a marginalized position became a major focus through his performance of photographic works.[6]