A scene from Mori's 1996 video work The Shaman Girl's Prayer. (Israel Museum of Art) TRIUMPHANT HOMECOMING: Art Princess Mariko Mori Returns to Japan March 15, 2002 Mariko Mori, born in Tokyo in 1967, has been distinguishing herself in the New York art world since the mid-1990s and is now a superstar of the American and European pop-art scene. After studying fashion in Tokyo and London, Mori moved to New York, where she continues her creative endeavors. Exhibitions devoted to her work have been held at famous galleries in Europe and the United States, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Her works have met with an enthusiastic response, and she has established herself as one of the world's leading young artists. In her homeland of Japan, however, until this year Mori's works had not been presented on a large scale; they had only been seen in small, solo gallery exhibitions or group exhibitions. But now that has changed. From January 19 through March 24 she is having her first major solo exhibition in Japan, a retrospective titled "Pure Land," which is being held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Photographs Dissect Modern Japan Mori first entered the limelight with her humorous photographic works, which present distorted versions of scenes from contemporary Japan and feature the artist herself dressed in costumes she designed in a "near-future" style. One photograph, for example, shows Mori as a female clerical worker pouring tea for her boss - a typical modern-day office scene, except that the tea server is half woman, half cyber-girl. In another of her photographs, the artist, dressed in the combat attire of a video-game protagonist, strikes a warrior pose in a real-life amusement arcade. Another photograph depicts the artist as a mermaid princess reclining on a wave-lapped beach - or perhaps it's just the deck of a swimming pool. Mori has astonished viewers with her novel way of using of her own body to dispel Western stereotypes about Japanese women. Mori has earned high acclaim outside of Japan. Her work has graced the cover of a leading U.S. art magazine, ARTnews. And she received a special mention at the 1997 Venice Biennale - known as the "Olympics of the art world" - where she displayed her works not in the Japanese pavilion but in the Northern European pavilion. Since that time, in addition to making photographs she has been creating installations utilizing video and 3-D animation.   Your Name What did you think of this article? It was interesting. It was boring. Send this article to a friend Trends in Japan Home Mori's portfolio also includes public art. In 1996 she released Link of the Moon, an installation work that merges a video titled Miko no Inori (The Shaman Girl's Prayer), which was filmed at Kansai International Airport. In the video the artist, dressed as a modern-day shaman, is shown worshiping an amethyst crystal. While still incorporating high-tech elements, this work exemplifies how Mori has shifted her artistic focus to the spiritual realm. In her 1997 work Nirvana - a 3-D video piece requiring viewers to don 3-D glasses - the artist appears as a goddess surrounded by cartoon characters flitting about playing traditional musical instruments. The gentle sounds and beautiful colors evoke a utopia produced using modern technology. A Multisensory Experience The main attraction of Mori's "Pure Land" exhibition is a 1999 piece titled Dream Temple. The work is a glass building inspired by the Yumedono (Dream Hall), the 1,300-year-old octagonal building at Horyuji temple where Prince Shotoku (574-622) was said to have lost himself in meditation. Viewers of Dream Temple enter the structure one at a time. Upon entry, they are transported for about five minutes into a futuristic, mysterious world of images resembling a journey into the mind. (Mori herself does not appear in the sequence.) This artistic voyage comprising images from a Japanese historic site, modern Japanese life, and the spiritual realm has met with wild enthusiasm in Europe and the United States; it will be interesting to see how Mori's work is received in her homeland. Copyright (c) 2002 Japan Information Network. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese Government.