Issue

Yasumasa Morimura: Through the Looking Glass

Yasumasa Morimura: Through the Looking Glass
YASUMASA MORIMURAPortrait (Futago), 1988, color photograph, 210.2 × 299.7 cm. Courtesy the artist; Luhring Augustine, New York; and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo.

In a fluorescent-lit subway car, sometime in the early 1990s, Audrey Hepburn sat perfectly poised. Illuminated by the harsh overhead light, her legs elegantly crossed, a slender cigarette holder between her gloved fingers, she wore a classic pearl necklace and meticulously styled hair. Amid this mundane commuter setting, she engendered an unlikely scene—the surreal juxtaposition of a “Hollywood star” with bleakly mundane surroundings.