Hiromix, the person credited with the current popularity of "girl" photographers, has thus far lived a charmed life: After stints as a "serious" artist, a band leader and, most recently, a mayonnaise spokeswoman, she has restyled herself as a singer-songwriter with the release of her new record "Hiromix 99" (Trattoria).
Embraced by the art establishment as the voice of a new generation of Japanese girls, she has already had a series of major shows and published several books. She also has a reputation as an enfant terrible who storms out of interviews and disses other well-established photographers. Hiromix's take on documentary photography (in the vein of Nan Goldin) revealed Japanese girls in all their winsome innocence (or not): getting dressed; playing with soft, fuzzy animals; and, most popularly, nude.
The foreign media has embraced Hiromix as yet another example of "Japan's rebellious, outspoken" youth. If this is the musical soundtrack to Japan's youthful revolution, then the establishment can sleep tight.