Yasumasa Morimura, Dedicated to La Duquesa de Alba/Black Alba, 2004. Chromogenic print mounted on canvas. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Museum purchase with funds from the McNay Contemporary Collectors Forum. © 2019 Yasumasa Morimura

Through his use of costumes, makeup, and digital manipulation, Yasumasa Morimura transforms himself into subjects from the Western art historical canon. 

This photograph is based on Francisco de Goya’s painting of María Cayetana de Silva, the 13th Duchess of Alba.

“I was trying to leap across binaries of categorization —masculine and feminine, East and West— as well as ideas such as the feminization of the East.”
— Yasumasa Morimura