MOSCOW, RUSSIA.- Gary Tatintsian Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo show of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura in Moscow. The exhibition will continue through December 1, 2006. Those who previously avoided attending contemporary art exhibits for fear of confronting something esoteric and incomprehensible, can make an exception this time. The exhibition - One Man Show - at Gary Tatintsian Gallery is meant to be taken in directly, regardless of the visitor’s preparation. Upon entering, one becomes a spectator to a stunning visual history of Western art, revealed through one man’s theatrical transformations of historic works. At first, the initial identification of these canonical paintings may produce a feeling of having seen a hoax. Yet, upon closer examination, something that was very familiar turns out to be an original artistic interpretation.

The creator of this explosive kitschy mix of Kabuki theater, painting and staged photography, is a guest from Japan Yasumasa Morimura. He is not only a photographer, but a director and producer, as well as the only dramatic persona in all of his works. Each of his photographs is a carefully choreographed spectacle, the finale of which is captured in a photographic instance.

Yasumasa Morimura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1951. He studied at the University of the Arts in Kyoto and received his Masters from Columbia University in New York. Later, this intensive education formed the basis for his discourse on the everlasting cultural disparities of the East and West. His artistic vernacular is a stream of contradictions, arising at the juncture of the traditional and the contemporary, the crossroads of gender identity, the conflict between outward appearance and inner being.

It is Morimura’s approach to the creation of his works that is decidedly interesting and surpasses the bounds of traditional photography. The process to creating each of his photographs is long, one that begins with constructing the decorative background for the scene, out of clay. After meticulous treatment, the sculpture gets painted and is given color. During the next phase, the artist transforms himself into the personage of the painting using extravagant make up and costume. The culmination of this endeavor is captured on film, and only at the very last stage is the image adjusted with the aid of current technology. In the end, a new kind of synthetic product is born, which combines the art of theater, sculpture, painting and photography in one.

Morimura’s art is a symbiosis of world cultures and history of art, collected through the prism of his imagination, fantasies and experiences. At first glance, his works appear spontaneous and ironic, but are in fact full of nuance and meaning. He is an artist mystifier. He gained world recognition with his series of self-portraits, transformations into canonical figures of contemporary mass culture like Marylin Monroe, Vivien Lee, Liza Minnelli. Another successful series of self-portraits was a collection of works illustrating the history of Western art that included interpretations of paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo.

By employing master paintings that are at once familiar and yet becoming more and more obsolete with time, Morimura is able to bring new life to them and make them interesting to the contemporary viewer.

No international Biennial of art goes by without including Morimura’s works. His works belong to permanent collections of the world’s largest museums (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum Ludwig, Köln; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum), and are part of respected private collections (The Saatchi Gallery, London).

Gary Tatintsian Gallery is pleased to present this full-scale exhibition of a prominent star of Japanese contemporary art. The show features large format photographs created by Morimura on the themes of paintings of famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and legendary painter Francisco Goya and a video installation.