Self-portrait photography masters Cindy Sherman and Yasumasa Morimura in new Hong Kong show
The American and Japanese artists known for masquerading as women from movies to critique society have their works up for comparison at M+
With “Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman: Masquerades”, Hong Kong’s M+ museum has set up a face-off of sorts between two of contemporary art’s most famous selfie takers.
Nearly 200 photographic self-portraits are arranged on opposing walls within the intimate space of the Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries, allowing for an up-close compare-and-contrast between the two giants of conceptual photography.
Curator Isabella Tam’s focus on earlier works highlights their overwhelming similarities.
Morimura, a male artist born in Japan in 1951, and Sherman, a woman artist born in America three years later, began to make elaborately staged self-portraits inspired by the silver screen at around the same time.
As master masqueraders, they honed in on the performative aspects of being a woman to explore how mass media defines what an “ideal” woman is, and hacked the visual codes of pop culture to challenge the audience to reflect on how they process images.
