The Costumed Self: Contemporary Japanese and Korean Photographers//Mimicry by yountsydney

The Costumed Self: Contemporary Japanese and South Korean Photographers// Mimicry Featuring the work of Sawada Tomoko, Yasumasa Morimura, Yeondoo Jung and Nikki S. Lee

Sawada Tomoko “The ‘‘wise mother and good wife’’ in Korea historically originates from the idea of the ‘‘good wife and wise mother’’ in Meiji Japan, but with altered syntax, placing ‘‘wise mother’’ before ‘‘good wife” 1

Jiyoung Suh, “The ‘New Woman’ and the Topography of Modernity in Colonial Korea, (Korean Studies 37, no. 1, 2013): p#17 2 Fritsch Lena Raven’s & Red Lipstick Japanese Photography Since 1945 (Thames & Hudson, 2018) p#218 1

Sawada Tomoko Japanese 1977-Present “I’m making self-portraits because this is the best way to think about my theme, which is relationship between inner and outer life. So that is my question. I know there is no real answer, but I just keep making” 3 -Sawada Tomoko

“Sawada, Tomoko · SFMOMA,” SFMOMA, accessed November 29, 2018, https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/tomoko_sawada/. 4 Fritsch p#219 3

Yasumasa Morimura “By appropriating well-known imagery and inserting himself into the work psychically through a masquerade, Morimura creates an uncanny and uncertain hybrid space of blurred gender, cultural, national, and ethnic distinctions, and overall, the work becomes allegorical where multiple meanings occur”5

Yasumasa Morimura Japanese 1951- Present “In the exhibition catalogue, I wrote: "Beauty is zawameki, or "commotion." “Commotion” occurs when two different things meet. It's like the beach. When the water -- the waves -- hits the shore, you see a commotion of waves on the beach and I find that beautiful. Or it's like cold water. When the cold water meets the fire, it generates a little noise and steam. That's commotion -- and beauty.”7- Yasumasa Morimura

Kay Itoi, “Beauty is Commotion,” Newsweek International, 2001, accessed April 23, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/itoi/itoi8-3-01.asp 8 Fritsch p# 207 7

Yeondoo Jung “Photography is such an uncompleted medium. It seems like it’s telling you the story, but it actually doesn’t. It’s only the viewer who sees it and mhmmm I might think this is this. They define the media and then the media is completed….The first few series, Bewtiched, I was asking people’s dream and making their dream come true.”9 - Yeondoo Jung

Yeondoo Jung South Korean 1969- Present

ArtAsiaPacificMagazine Interview with Yeondoo Jung (Vimeo 2018) Accessed April 23, 2021 https://vimeo.com/234974693 10 Sinsheimer, Karen Anne, Wilkes Tucker, Koo, Bohnchang Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography (The Museum of Fine Arts and Huston Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Yale University 2009) p#86

“Jung’s photographic escapes and his re-creation of reality become even more elaborate, bounded only by the limits of the imagination.”11

11 12

Sinsheimer p#66 Sinsheimer p#87

Nikki S. Lee “The Project series….serves as proof of the constructed-ness of identity: if the artist can become anyone she wants, then the boundaries that enclose and separate identities are not as hard and fast as they seem”13

Nikki S. Lee South Korean 1970- Present

Smith, Cherise Enacting Others Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith (Duke University Press 2011) p# 190 14 Smith p#22

“Lee has selected a subculture upon which to practice her artistic version of the anthropologist’s “going-native.” Whereas the anthropologist focuses on rites of passage that establish the bonds of community, Lee’s Projects enact “rites of passing” that raise the question of belonging to community in the first place”15

15 16

Kaplan, Louis Preforming Community: Nikki S. Lee’s Photographic Rites of Passing (2005) p# 173 Smith p#228

The Costumed Self: Contemporary Japanese and South Korean Photographers// Mimicry Mimicry is the action or art of imitating someone or something, typically in order to entertain or ridicule. Sawada Tomoko, Yasumasa Morimura, Yeondoo Jung and Nikki S. Lee all use forms mimicry through costuming themselves and others. They take on the roles of others or help others mimic parts of themselves, to display a wonderful critique of gender roles, gender representation, dreams, and culture. To explore their work and their costumed selves is to explore larger concepts of Japan, South Korea, the world at large, and ourselves. Sawada Tomoko’s OAIMA is a direct mimicry of the Japanese tradition of women finding her husband. “The ‘‘wise mother and good wife’’ in Korea historically originates from the idea of the ‘‘good wife and wise mother’’ in Meiji Japan, but with altered syntax, placing ‘‘wise mother’’ before ‘‘good wife.” 17 These gender roles of a wife are exactly what Tomoko is critiquing. By placing herself in the role of women being photographed for to advertise themselves for husbands, Tomoko asks what the weight of this role is, and what happens when a single person represents themselves in multiple ways through multiple ads. Tomoko is not looking for a husband, but she is exploring what it means to be a women looking for a husband. She says about her work: “I’m making self-portraits because this is the best way to think about my theme, which is relationship between inner and outer life. So that is my question. I know there is no real answer, but I just keep making.” 18 This connection between inner and outer self is not addressed in the woman’s photographs who earnestly create Oaima photography for their future spouse. Yet, what if they did? If all women took a critical look at the history around these gender roles, would all be satisfied, or would they discover that their participation is a mimicry

Jiyoung Suh, “The ‘New Woman’ and the Topography of Modernity in Colonial Korea, (Korean Studies 37, no. 1, 2013): p#17 18 “Sawada, Tomoko · SFMOMA,” SFMOMA, accessed November 29, 2018, https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/tomoko_sawada/. 17

of historical oppression through submission of women and the deep cultural need to make a woman “a good wife.” Yasumasa Morimura explores mimicry through gender performance, as they take pop culture references of women and place themselves in the work, as a person with male autonomy. In Sumi Min’s paper of Yasumasa Morimura she states, “By appropriating well-known imagery and inserting himself into the work psychically through a masquerade, Morimura creates an uncanny and uncertain hybrid space of blurred gender, cultural, national, and ethnic distinctions, and overall, the work becomes allegorical where multiple meanings occur.”19 This is the perfect introduce to his work as we look at images such as “White Darkness” and “Red Marylin.” One could say that this is a form of drag, but the messages of preforming a different gender crossed with popular culture references run deeper than that. When speaking about his own work Morimura states: “In the exhibition catalogue, I wrote: "Beauty is zawameki, or "commotion." “Commotion” occurs when two different things meet. It's like the beach. When the water -- the waves -- hits the shore, you see a commotion of waves on the beach and I find that beautiful. Or it's like cold water. When the cold water meets the fire, it generates a little noise and steam. That's commotion -- and beauty.”20 It is this beauty, this commotion, that breaks the heteronormative standard of gender representation. Battling LGBTQ rights such as same-sex relations are issues in Japan; Morimura’s work around gender queerness continue to fight against the oppression and give a sense of liberation to those who do not fit in a prescribed gender performance. Afterall, it is a performance.

Sumi Min Studies of Postmodern Theory of Allegory in the Contemporary Art and Allegorical Asepects in Photography of Yanagi Miwa and Morimura Yasumasa (Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 2013) p#40 20 Kay Itoi, “Beauty is Commotion,” Newsweek International, 2001, accessed April 23, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/itoi/itoi8-3-01.asp

Yeondoo Jung explores mimicry as he takes people in blue collar work and reimagines them in their dream jobs. Due to restrictions such as economic standing, often decided before birth, and feasibility often dreams of people in South Korea, and around the world are put on the back of the self and never come to be. Jung indulges in the idea, ‘but what if they came true.’ Jung speaks to process of his own work in this series and his relationship to photography: “Photography is such an uncompleted medium. It seems like it’s telling you the story, but it actually doesn’t. It’s only the viewer who sees it and mhmmm I might think this is this. They define the media and then the media is completed….The first few series, Bewtiched, I was asking people’s dream and making their dream come true.”21 Jung is challenging the idea of restriction in blue collar careers and uses photography to make the seemingly impossible real. In the book ‘Ravens and Red Lipstick’ Jung’s work is described as “Jung’s photographic escapes and his re-creation of reality become even more elaborate, bounded only by the limits of the imagination.” 22 Through allowing people to realize their dreams Jung’s work lives in an imaginary world, even though these dream professions are real. It asks the question: what has halted these dreams from coming true. Through an American lens we may call into question the validity of ‘The American Dream.’ Nikki S. Lee divulges mimicry as she takes herself and inserts herself into other cultures and sub-groups within America. This series is called the Projects and she realizes herself from scenes such as the Punks, Exotic Dancers, Hispanics, and Rednecks of Ohio. She infiltrates the culture if only for a moment to play off the roles of ‘passing’ and absorbing the people she aims to mimic and absolving herself of her own identity. In a book by Cherise Smith she writes, “The

ArtAsiaPacificMagazine Interview with Yeondoo Jung (Vimeo 2018) Accessed April 23, 2021 https://vimeo.com/234974693 22 Sinsheimer p#66

Project series….serves as proof of the constructed-ness of identity: if the artist can become anyone she wants, then the boundaries that enclose and separate identities are not as hard and fast as they seem.” 23 Smith is arguing that identities are not one-of-a-kind or that special, but something that can examined and reproduced. Louis Kaplan writes in their book, “Lee has selected a subculture upon which to practice her artistic version of the anthropologist’s “goingnative.” Whereas the anthropologist focuses on rites of passage that establish the bonds of community, Lee’s Projects enact “rites of passing” that raise the question of belonging to community in the first place.” 24 These ‘rites of passage’ versus ‘rites of passing’ provide a provocative look at the idea that someone can become someone of any culture or sub-group. While Lee’s work has been seen as problematic, especially her use of darkening her skin for projects such as The Hip Hop Project, which harkens blackface, oen thing is true her use mimicry asks questions of all of us, are we simply ‘passing,’ or are we integral to that culture or sub-group, what would happen if we just left, anything at all. Could we become someone entirely new if we changed the way we dressed and acted? Through the work of Sawada Tomoko, Yasumasa Morimura, Yeondoo Jung and Nikki S. Lee we are directly looking at another’s form of mimicry, but we are also looking at ourselves. What does our gender role mean to us? What does our gender performance, dreams, and culture really say about us? Are we all just simply acting in mimicry of something we have seen before, or something we strive to be? Where is the line between performing identity and having one that does not wavier in time and space? Are we truly held down to history of who we ought to be laid before us? To look at this work critically is to look at yourself through a new lens.

Smith, Cherise Enacting Others Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith (Duke University Press 2011) p# 190 24 Kaplan, Louis Preforming Community: Nikki S. Lee’s Photographic Rites of Passing (2005) p# 173

Bibliography ArtAsiaPacificMagazine Interview with Yeondoo Jung (Vimeo 2018) Accessed April 23, 2021 https://vimeo.com/234974693 Fritsch Lena Raven’s & Red Lipstick Japanese Photography Since 1945 (Thames & Hudson, 2018) Jiyoung Suh, “The ‘New Woman’ and the Topography of Modernity in Colonial Korea, (Korean Studies 37, no. 1, 2013) Kaplan, Louis Preforming Community: Nikki S. Lee’s Photographic Rites of Passing (2005) Kay Itoi, “Beauty is Commotion,” Newsweek International, 2001, accessed April 23, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/itoi/itoi8-3-01.asp “Sawada, Tomoko · SFMOMA,” SFMOMA, accessed November 29, 2018, https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/tomoko_sawada/. Sinsheimer, Karen Anne, Wilkes Tucker, Koo, Bohnchang Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography (The Museum of Fine Arts and Huston Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Yale University 2009) Smith, Cherise Enacting Others Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith (Duke University Press 2011) Sumi Min Studies of Postmodern Theory of Allegory in the Contemporary Art and Allegorical Asepects in Photography of Yanagi Miwa and Morimura Yasumasa (Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 2013)