Label Text:
While Eizan is best known for his prints of beautiful courtesans in lavish kimono, he did execute several designs featuring sumo wrestlers, though they are often viewed as less successful, especially with their generic and repetitive faces. Indeed, this may not have been an accident: such a one-size-fits-all approach would have allowed his publisher to update sumo rankings simply by switching the order of the names printed at the top. Using the copy-and-paste feature of Photoshop, Kim achieves a similar effect, replicating himself over and over again. The title, Paleo, is a reference to the fad diet in which one attempts to eat like a caveman, a possible reference to ever-changing historical standards of beauty, of which sumo wrestlers (who were greatly desired in the Edo period) are a classic example.

Tags:
diaspora; blue; humor; social commentary; self-portraits; sports; wrestling; men

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2016.05

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.

1 Related Objects