Mar 18, 2017
Bread Man
The picture represents the persona of the Japanese artist Tatsumi Orimoto, who hides his identity under a sculptural mass of bread and then performs normal everyday activities.
In this particular example, Orimoto used his bread guise for double portraits of himself and his mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, a visual merging of her changed mental reality with his performance of physical difference.
To me, the work is absolutely brilliant, but I must call into question the actual part played by Orimoto’s mother. Her disease is almost a way to be more successful in what the artist was trying to achieve. Does this kind of performance have to be considered a form of voyerism?
