MARIKO MORI

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

Mariko was born in 1967 in Tokyo, her father is a japanese scientist. During the 80s she worked as a model , in the meantime she graduated in Fashion Design at the Bunka Fashion College, Tokyo (1986-1988).Once she has declared that, when she was about 20, she lived a strange experience like an unconscious dream, in which she felt her death and then rebirth (probably this event has been one of the inspirations for the Dream Temple cycle - I guess-).After that episode, she realized that, first of all, she was a living creature. That's why Mariko Mori has used and uses her image to performe art, this rapresent her cumscience of being. Actually her talent was immediately shown working in fashion (as a designer), because she definitely broke the dichotomy CREATOR - MODEL , projecting marvellous dresses that she wore in chosen locations. So, in Mori's iter, fashion lost its consumeristic side, becoming a conceptual way to performe.

She moved to UK in 1988, where she studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art (1988-1989) and at the Chelsea College, London (1989-1992). In 1992 she started an Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of New York, where she moved definitely. Now she lives and works in her studio, between Tokyo and New York City, towns that have given her celebrity and appreciation.Her art has become famous in Europe at the end of the 90's, and now,at the beginning of the 2000 all the art world agrees considering her an icon of our ages. Her works are probably some of the most expensive products in the history of art, because of their sophisticated realization, that's why she is sponsored by Shiseido and Sony.