Skip to main content
Self-Portrait (Actress)/ After Elizabeth Taylor 2
Artist
Yasumasa Morimura
(Japanese, born 1951)
Date1996
MediumIlfachrome photograph mounted on Plexiglas
DimensionsUnframed: 47 1/4 x 37 3/8 in. (120.02 x 94.93 cm)
Framed: 49 1/8 x 39 1/4 x 1 3/8 in. (124.78 x 99.7 x 3.49 cm)
Framed: 49 1/8 x 39 1/4 x 1 3/8 in. (124.78 x 99.7 x 3.49 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase made possible by a grant from The Burnett Foundation
Object number1998.15
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Yasumasa Morimura. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.
Category
Label TextAt first glance, Yasumasa Morimura’s photograph Self-Portrait (Actress)/After Elizabeth Taylor 2, 1996, something seems amiss. The title confirms it: the artist, a Japanese man, is dressed as the American movie idol Elizabeth Taylor. Morimura adopts Taylor’s clothing, makeup, and even body type, posed as if for a glamorous publicity still for her 1956 movie Western Giant. To defy expectations of both race and gender, Morimura hides his facial hair with pancake makeup, binds parts of his body, and wears prosthetics. The masquerade recalls Japanese traditions of Kabuki theater, in which both male and female roles are traditionally played by men in elaborate makeup and dress.
Despite the elaborate guise, the artist never fully erases his own presence, which lends the picture a humorous side inseparable from its awkwardness. The image raises numerous dichotomies of identity—male/female, East/West, anonymous/celebrity, and copy/original. Do we assume that some of these are more powerful, exotic, or normal than others? Using photography and his own body to explore artifice and authenticity, Morimura confronts questions of power, cultural intersections and differences, and the construction of self.
Despite the elaborate guise, the artist never fully erases his own presence, which lends the picture a humorous side inseparable from its awkwardness. The image raises numerous dichotomies of identity—male/female, East/West, anonymous/celebrity, and copy/original. Do we assume that some of these are more powerful, exotic, or normal than others? Using photography and his own body to explore artifice and authenticity, Morimura confronts questions of power, cultural intersections and differences, and the construction of self.