SELFIE is the first photography book by the Japanese graphic and performance artist Ken Kagami and contains 114 masked self-portraits.
It's hard to un-see Ken Kagami's work once you've come across it – scatalogical, sexual, silly and always entertaining, but marked out by a unique line in taboo-breaking humour that makes him an important contemporary artist.
From Homer Simpson to Snoopy, characters play a central role in Kagami’s drawing practice. Every morning at his studio he chooses from his collection of masks, costumes and other props to create a character he records with a phone selfie in his bathroom mirror with results that – you guessed it – are by turns surreal, strange, hilarious and unnerving.
A warm-up exercise of sorts, this process has become a key part of his daily routine, foregrounding all of his other artistic experiments.
