Yasumasa Morimura
Yokohama Museum of Art
This midcareer survey, curated by Mayumi Otsuka and Eriko Kimura and originally presented at the Kumamoto Museum of Art, showed Yasumasa Morimura’s major works from 1985 through 2007 in a theatrical framework: The museum galleries became something like classrooms, where the audience is instructed in the appreciation of “Western masterpieces” via audio-guide lectures recorded by Morimura himself. The educational setup was ironic, as the “masterpieces” are, of course, Morimura’s own simulations of paintings by artists such as Vermeer, van Gogh, Cézanne, Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, and Frida Kahlo.