Yasumasa Morimura’s video projection piece, Dialogue with Myself (Encounter), pays homage to the extraordinary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The DVD projection and the photographic works are part of a new series entitled An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo, in which Morimura becomes Frida Kahlo to reveal her world. On screen, Morimura plays the roles of Frida Kahlo, shown in various personas and hairdos, as well as that of her male accompanist, who sits beside her playing an electronic keyboard (using compositions by Morimura himself), while Kahlo shouts out Spanish words and phrases. In the video and in the photographs, Morimura re-creates, relives, and indulges in the painter’s artistic process, vividly depicting the glamorous yet agonizing life of this remarkable woman. He describes Kahlo’s art as a “fierce and intense manifestation of human sentiments and universal themes, such as joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, beauty, life and love.”

Morimura has won international acclaim for his unique and avant-garde expression of “beauty.” His images are rooted in Japanese Kabuki theatre, where male actors play female parts. Since 1985, his focus has been his “self-portrait” series, consisting of unique reconstructions of art masterpieces in which the subject’s face is substituted with Morimura’s. Through careful study and analysis of the themes, artists, and historical background of these works, he searches out their raison d’être and transforms them according to his own interpretations. His ability to deconstruct, subvert, and simultaneously create an homage is what enables his work to continually defy categorization. Lynn Gumpert in Art in Americastates: “Morimura’s contribution to the genre of self-portraiture is substantial. He approaches it not only as a revelation of who he is, but as an exploration of the limitless possibilities to be whatever he wants.”

Morimura has shown extensively in international solo exhibitions, and his work is in the following selected collections: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.