Yasumasa Morimura

Yasumasa Morimura (born 1951) is a Japanese appropriation artsit.

Similarly to American photographer Cindy Sherman Morimura uses extensive props and digital manipulation to create his images, resulting in often-uncanny recreations of iconic works. "Taking photographs is generally an act of 'looking at the object, whereas 'being seen' or 'showing' is what is of most interest to one who does a self-portrait," he has explained.

"Self-portraits deny not only photography itself, but the 20th century as an era as well."

Morimura borrows images from historical artists (ranging from Édouard Manet to Rembrandt) and inserts his own face and body into them.

He even disguises himself as the principal subjects that appear in the artworks he appropriated, many of which go against his racial, ethnic, and gender boundaries as an Asian male because most of the artworks he appropriates have Western subjects, particularly female subjects.

These include Mona Lisa, Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, and the characters in Velázques Las Meninas.

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