KYOTOGRAPHIE Traveling Exhibition｜Kimiko Yoshida

Kimiko Yoshida

(Selection form the 2015 ‘All that’s not me” KYOTOGRAPHIE exhibition)

Paris-based artist Kimiko Yoshida works exclusively in self-portraits, yet she asserts that each photograph is a “ceremony of disappearance.” “It is not me,” Kimiko asserts, an emphasis of identity, “but the opposite—an erasure.” Certainly, identity is a major theme of her work, but the question she seems to ask is not so much “Who am I” but rather “How many of me are there?” So, in all her photographic series so far—Bright Bride, where she poses as a bride in Japanese and other cultural settings, Haute Couture, where she raids the clothing archives of leading fashion houses, or Paintings, inspired by famous works from the history of pictorial art—she herself appears as the model, nearly always facing the lens, usually shown from the chest upwards, in prints that are always made at the same 150×150 cm size. There’s no digital editing. Her ‘wardrobe’ includes pieces from her self coutured collection, articles of folk costume, and a stunning profusion of objects diverted from their original use: adapting shoes and handbags as headwear, and even the tassels or fringes of lampshades and curtains, Kimiko turns an endless assortment into original, elaborate ensembles. Her face and body are treated as decorative elements—whitened, blackened or otherwise made-up—often dissolving the boundary-delineating model from the background. Kimiko’s images bring to mind the self-portraits of earlier female artists such as Claude Cahun, who sought to comprehensively deconstruct her own sexuality, or Cindy Sherman, who portrayed herself acting out the female image propagated by the media, yet Kimiko Yoshida’s approach to portraiture is different. She has won great acclaim in Europe, with many solo exhibitions, but this will be Kimiko’s first full-scale show in her native Japan.