Tatsumi Orimoto, the performance artist famed for his Bread Man character, has died.
First initiated in 1991, Orimoto twined loaves of bread – white flour baguettes, bloomers and rolls – onto his face. Now transformed into his alter-ego he paraded through the streets, sometimes with a similarly dough-dressed entourage, in Japan, UK, USA, Turkey, Nepal and Germany, with each of the more than two hundred happenings documented by an assistant.
His route into performance came after his application to art college was rejected six times in a row. Instead, Orimoto travelled to the US, where he met Nam June Paik and, influenced by Yoko Ono and John Cage, became immersed in the Fluxus movement. Back home in Japan, a Christian friend happened to mention the symbolic nature of bread to the body; and though this Orimoto developed his mask. Other works saw Orimoto perform with animals: pigs strapped in a baby harness to his front; ducks carried around his neck in trays.
In later years, after the death of his father, Orimoto’s travels were curtailed by the need to care for his mother, Odaï Orimoto (1919–2017), who had Alzheimer’s disease; this arrangement led to a series of collaboratives works between the two in which Odaï and others suffering from dementia were photographed in unusual or unexpected places, often accompanied by Bread Man.
