Saturday, November 19, 2011

Mariko Mori


Q: Mariko Mori in the series Pureland or Burning Desire explores a Relationship with Japanese popular culture, Elaborate on the use of parody by the artist.

            In the 1996 piece “Pure Land,” Mariko Mori is invoking Manga and Anime by presenting herself as a central character from the popular Japanese cartoon artwork.

            The work is a three-panel piece: in the first one she emerges from the heart of a lotus flower as an eastern goddess, surrounded by a pink sphere that incases her, and circled by six little imps suspended in their own pink spheres and playing musical instruments.  The scene is set in front of a rosy backdrop with a distant horizon suggesting a mysterious, undisturbed land.  She portrays Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.”  Mariko collaborates modern Japanese animation with western art.
            In the second panel, Mariko is flying in the sky with small, glowing “leaves/bubbles/flowers.”
            In the third panel, she is resting her knees on the lotus flower and is posed in an imperial, mystic stance.  In the background an unidentified object is reflected by the pink surface below, indicating its status as water.

            The effect is just what you would expect from a video game or a fantasy video, and at the same time, parodies eastern mysticism and western art.

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