- Mariko Mori
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Mariko Mori at the Japan Society Panel on Art & Nature, on March 23, 2010
Mariko Mori (森 万里子, Mori Mariko, b. 1967 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese video and photographic artist. While studying at Bunka Fashion College, she worked as a fashion model in the late 1980s. This strongly influenced her early works, such as Play with Me, in which she takes control of her role in the image, becoming an exotic, alien creature in everyday scenes. In 1989, she moved to London to study at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Exhibitions and works
The juxtaposition of Eastern mythology with Western culture is a common theme in Mori's works, often through layering photography and digital imaging, such as in her 1995 installation Birth of a Star. Later works, such as Nirvana show her as a goddess, transcending her early roles via technology and image, and abandoning realistic urban scenes for more alien landscapes.
Play With Me (1994): Standing outside a Tokyo toy store, Mori dressed herself as a sexy cyborg—with light blue hair in long ponytails, metallic blue plastic in a hard-shell articulation of erotic body parts, silver plastic gloves, and a dress. Mori was trying to show that she connects to the robotic toys inside the store, but also to show her available unemotional sexuality.[1]
Subway (1994): Mori stood in a Tokyo subway car dressed as if she just landed from outer space. She was dressed in a silver metallic costume with a headset, microphone, and push-buttons on her forearm. This transformation—along with Play With Me—was to explore different constructed identities.[1]
Empty Dream (1995): Mori manipulates a photo of a real public swimming place as she inserts herself in a blue plastic mermaid costume in several locations within the scene. This image refers to, among other things, the rising of technology and philosophy around the creation of man through biotechnology.[1]
Oneness (2002): Oneness presents the dimensions of spirituality, photografy and fashion into a deep look on the originality of the artist's skill hence the usage of technology's brand new trends. The outlook designs of Oneness gathers the capacity nevertheless the hability to use advanced technology knowledge converted to some sort of mystic and UFO's.[2]
Including in Oneness you can find some sub-works such as the Wave-UFO, a 6.000 kg dome where the visitor, once inside it, can see projected paintings reworked with computer graphics and then transformed into photographs in the interior dome of the Wave UFO.[2]
Notes
- ^ a b c Fineberg, Jonathan (2000) (paperback). Art Since 1940. Strategies of Being (Second ed.). Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Prentice Hill Publishers. pp. 494–5. ISBN 0-13-183978-0.
- ^ a b Deitch Projects [1]
External links
- Mariko Mori at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin [2]
- Mori's Birth of a Star at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- Exclusive Mariko Mori video
- Her sculpture Tom Na H-iu, driven by the Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory
- Mori's "Wave UFO"
- Mori interview at the Journal of Contemporary Art
- Mariko Mori at Brooklyn Museum of Art: Review of exhibition Empty Dream, Asian Art News, November 1999
- Shibuya River Mori Profile with links
- Tea With Mariko at artnet.com
- Mariko Mori compared to Salvador Dali
- Mori profile at deitch.com
- Oneness exhibition at deitch.com
Categories:- Contemporary artists
- Video artists
- 1967 births
- Living people
- People from Tokyo
- Alumni of Chelsea College of Art & Design
- Japanese artist stubs
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