2020/06/08

Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura, Tokyo 2020
January 25 (Saturday) – July 12 (Sunday), 2020[1]
No matter how deeply I searched within myself, I could never find anything resembling a center, much less any kind of truth. From thetime I was a child, the only thing I knew for sure was that there was a vast emptiness there. If anything, things like truth, values andideas, existed outside my body, and like clothes, I was free to change them whenever I liked. This concept made a lot more sense to me
than anything else.
from Ego ObscuraThe Hara Museum of Contemporary Art is proud to present Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura, Tokyo 2020. In his
acclaimed photographic self-portraits, Morimura re-enacts famous paintings, movies and moments in history,
injecting himself as the protagonist. By reincarnating himself through the skillful use of makeup and costume, hetranscends the time, race and gender of the subject while imbuing it with a meta-commentary uniquely his own.
Making a splash in 1985 with his debut work Portrait (Van Gogh), Morimura has persistently explored the theme ofthe "self" through his photographic works, and more recently through self-produced, -scripted and -acted video
works and live performances.
This exhibition comes on the heels of Morimura's highly successful Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura held last year
at the Japan Society in New York. For this Tokyo version, he has rearranged his video work entitled Ego Obscura,which, along with a lecture performance, comprises the centerpiece of the show. In the video, Morimura appears
as Emperor Hirohito, General Douglas MacArthur, Marilyn Monroe and Yukio Mishima – iconic figures that are
deeply etched into the collective memory of the Japanese people. Born in Osaka in 1951 during the post-war
occupation by the Allied Forces, Morimura was educated at a time when the country's pre-war teachings had been
rejected and the resulting "void" infiltrated by Western values. This experience led him to see truth, values andideas as things that "reside outside the body," which like clothes could be "freely changed" at will (quoted fromEgo Obscura).

For over 30 years, Morimura has injected himself into the history of Western art. What ideas did he embrace as hewent beyond notions of race and gender? Those ideas, which form the background from which his works wereborn, are given voice in the exhibition's titular video work Ego Obscura, which engendered a strong response inNew York. They are encompassed in the title "Ego Obscura," an unfamiliar word that Morimura uses to refer towhat he describes as "an ambiguous ego wrapped in darkness." In 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics fifty-fiveyears after the first Olympics which symbolized the country's postwar revival, in self-portraits imbued withcomplex feelings towards a motherland that go beyond mere affection, Morimura directs the question "what is the"self" ?" not only to us, but to the nation of Japan itself as well.
Highlights of the Exhibition
1. Ego Obscura, Tokyo 2020 Lecture Performance
Morimura will give a lecture performance of his work Ego Obscura, Tokyo 2020.
Dates: January 25 (Sat.), 26 (Sun.), February 22 (Sat.), 23 (Sun.), March 20 (Friday/national holiday), 21 (Sat.),April 12 (Sun.)
Time: 16:00 – 17:00*Performance will be held in Japanese only.
*Reservations required. Free with museum admission. Details will be posted on the museum website.
2. Yasumasa Morimura and the Hara Museum
Morimura's previous exhibitions at the Hara Museum include Rembrandt's Room (1994), which delves deeply intothe "self" using as his theme the great 17th century painter from the Netherlands and the light and dark aspects of
his life, and Morimura Self-Portraits: An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo (2001), which presents the life, loves and deathof the great 20th-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo through festively rendered images. Another work, Rondo, is aunique permanent installation that Morimura made using one of the building's toilets in 1994. While undergoingoccasional changes in clothing, Rondo stands as one of the museum's defining trademarks.
3. Morimura to Juxtapose His Famous Early Work Portrait (Futago) born of Manet's Olympia with His
New Work Une moderne Olympia 2018
Morimura's famous Portrait (Futago) (1988) which he created early in his career, takes as its subject Edouard
Manet's Olympia (1865), a work that changed the course of modern painting. In it, Morimura, a person of theso-called "yellow race" and of the male gender, assumes the roles of both the white prostitute and black servant
painted by Manet. Now, thirty years later, Morimura has unveiled his most recent work, Une moderne Olympia 2018,
in which the figure whose nakedness is exposed to the public gaze looks back with a gaze even more intense. Here,the young prostitute has been changed into a geisha reminiscent of Madame Butterfly and the black servant into a
Western male reminiscent of Pinkerton. The exhibition features a new work by Morimura based on Manet's othermasterpiece made late in his career, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. We invite you to view Morimura's presentation ofthese various protagonists and the complex interaction that arises between them.
Yasumasa Morimura
Born 1951 in Osaka, where he continues to live and work.
Completed undergraduate and graduate degrees at Kyoto City University of Arts.
He made his debut in 1985 with self-portrait works based on his personal interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh.
He has since produced a number of self-portraits in elaborated staged photographic and video works, withhimself incarnated as art-historical images, famous film actresses and iconic figures from the 20th century.

In 1988, Morimura was invited to take part in the Aperto section of the 43rd Venice Biennale. In the years since,
he has participated in countless important exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. He draws his main themes fromfamous paintings by such iconic artists as Van Gogh, Velázquez, Goya, Vermeer and Frida Kahlo, as well as
images from movies and other forms of pop culture and mass media, as seen in his Requiem series. Not only does
he grapple with the issues of identity and gender in these images, Morimura uses them as meta-commentaries that
posit questions to himself and to his audience, about the role of painting and photography as forms of media.
His solo exhibitions include The Sickness unto Beauty: Self-portrait as Actress (Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama,1996), Self-Portrait as Art History (Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and two other venues, 1998), Morimura
Self-Portraits: An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo (Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2001), A Requiem: Arton Top of the Battlefield (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo and other venues, 2010), YasumasaMorimura: Theater of the Self (The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 2013), The Self-Portraits of YASUMASA
MORIMURA: My Art, My Story, My Art History (National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2016), Yasumasa Morimura. The
history of the self-portrait (The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 2017) and Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura(Japan Society, New York, 2018).
In 2014, he was the artistic director of Yokohama Triennale.
In 2018, Morimura performed Yasumasa Morimura: Nippon Cha Cha Cha! at the Pompidou Metz (Metz, France),Minato City Gender Equality Center's Libra Hall (Tokyo) and the Japan Society (New York).
In 2018, the Morimura @ Museum was opened in Kitakagaya, Osaka.
His publications include Self-Portrait as Actress: Yasumasa Morimura, Nigensha Co., Ltd, 2010; Manebu Art History(imitating art history), Akaaka Art Publishing Inc., 2010; Taidan Nanimonokaheno Requiem/20 Seiki wo Shikosuru(conversations about requiem/considering the 20th century), Iwanami Shoten Publishers, 2011; Bijutsu, Otoseyo (art,respond!), Chikumashobo Ltd., 2014 and Jigazo no Yukue (the whereabouts of self-portrait), Kobunsha Co., Ltd.,2019.
He has received a number of awards for his achievements, including the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize of Fine Arts (2007), 52th Mainichi Art Prize (2011),
Photographic Society of Japan Award (2011) and also one of the most prestigious awards in the field of art andscience, the Order of Purple Ribbon (2011).
Exhibition Details
Title: Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura, Tokyo 2020
Dates: January 25 (Saturday) – July 12 (Sunday), 2020
Organized by: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Supported by: regist ART
Cooperation provided by: Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Chishima Real Estate Co., Ltd., Japan Society, New York
Venue: 4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001 Tel: 03-3445-0651
E-mail: info@haramuseum.or.jp Website: https://www.haramuseum.or.jp
Hours: Weekdays 11:00 – 16:00 Weekends & national holidays 11:00 – 17:00
Closed: Mondays (except February 24), February 25, April 14 and May 7, 2020
Admission: General 1,100 yen; Students 700 yen (high school and university) or 500 yen (elementary and juniorhigh); 550 yen for those over 70; Free for Hara Museum members and for students through high school every

Saturday during the school term
* Upon reopening on June 9th, an advance reservation will be required in order to visit the museum.
Directions to the museum: 5 minutes by taxi or 15 minutes on foot from JR Shinagawa Station (Takanawa exit);
or from the same station take the No.96 bus, get off at the first stop (Gotenyama), and walk 3 minutes
Number of works: approx. 20*Ego Obscura will be screened daily. See website for details.

Images for Publication*Please include the credit along with the respective caption.
*Please do not trim or alter the images. Putting text over the images is prohibited.

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[1] Still image from Ego Obscura, 2020 Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga ⓒYasumasa Morimura[2] Still image from Ego Obscura, 2020 Photo: Masahiro Hasunuma ⓒYasumasa Morimura[3] Une moderne Olympia 2018, 2018 ⓒYasumasa Morimura[4] Self-Portrait (Actress)/Marilyn at Tokyo University, Komaba, 1995 - 2008 ⓒYasumasa Morimura[5] A Requiem: Mishima, 1970.11.25 – 2006.4.6, 2006 ⓒYasumasa Morimura
Press Enquiries
Contact: Yasuko Kajita / Junko Watanabe
T. +81.3.3280.0679 E. press@haramuseum.or.jp[3][5]