The Digital Arts movement have transformed they way we think of an art today. Computers have set a new stage for the artists, as they are able to create artwork from their laptops using digital codes. One of the controversial artists of this century is Yasumasa Morimura, who shed light on issues of sexual and gender identities, as well as ethnic background in the late twentieth century art world.
Portrait (Futago) created in 1988 is a color photograph by Morimura. At first glance we see a close resemblance to a famous and traditional painting by Edouard Manet, Olympia (1863). In the original painting Manet portrayed a nude French prostitute with a black servant standing next to her. Over a century later, Morimura takes the setting of this painting and changes a few details. First, he replaces the French woman with a picture of himself. It is obvious that the nude body is of a …show more content…
Without a doubt, Morimura chose such a famous painting for a reproduction to evoke emotion in an audience and to shed light on modern problems. The artist highlights the racial inequality and gender identity issues present in the original painting, and adds more contradictory values, such as ethnic background, sexual orientation, and influence of Western art globally. Cultural identity is important to Morimura: he points out that growing up in Japan, he was very much influenced by Western culture and art. He highlights this by adding a Japanese kimono in the photograph, and replacing the black cat with a lucky charm cat — a traditional icon in the Asian culture. Portraying himself as a cross-dresser also brings a topic of sexual orientation to the forefront. He breaks the stereotypes of what we think is traditional, by “corrupting” the original painting. Perhaps, over a hundred fifty years ago when Manet painted Olympia such topics were irrevelant or taboo, the importance of sexual orientation issue has grown over the