Simon Fujiwara

Simon Fujiwara, Empathy I, 2018, 5D simulator installation (with video, sound, motion, water, and wind), duration 3:49 min, outer dimensions of box: 3,71 x 7,6 x 5,35 meters
Exhibition view: Simon Fujiwara, Empathy I, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2018
Photo © Andrea Rossetti

The exhibition presents one of the most intriguing artistic phenomena of our time: the fusion of the visual and the performing arts. Today, more often than not, a visit to an exhibition does not merely offer new visual impressions. Instead, it is a more comprehensive experience that involves all the senses. Artists combine video, performance, dance, language and music, creating intermedial works. In some cases, this results in giving the visitors the opportunity to give up the distanced position of the viewer and become part of the work.

State of the Arts brings together the work of 16 artists, among them Simon Fujiwara and his multi-sensory Empathy I. Developed in close collaboration with a company that produces theme park rides, Empathy I is a 5d simulator that takes audiences on a journey back into the ‘real world’ on a physically immersive ride through the world of Youtube.

More information HERE.

Simon Fujiwara, It's a Small World, 2019 (detail)
Photo © Sahir Uğur Eren

It’s a Small World, Simon Fujiwara's project for the 16th Istanbul Biennial, began after he discovered a large quantity of semi-ruined figures of pop icons in the trash of an attractions’ manufacturer near Istanbul. He salvaged these figures and combined them with thirteen architectural miniatures. A prison revolving around Batman’s the Joker’s face, a museum built among the ruins of Disney characters or a hospital buried in the legs of Iron Man. In these sculptural works, the functions of everyday civic architecture are blended with symbols from the mass-entertainment world. Fujiwara’s miniature city draws attention to the ways in which fantasy and escapism have bled into the core structures of our everyday lives, often masking the brutal pragmatism of globalized capitalism.

More information on the 16th Istanbul Biennial can be found HERE.

Simon Fujiwara, Joanne, 2016/2018 (detail), three free-standing aluminium-clad structures: one with in-built LED monitors screening video (duration 12:06 min) and digital print, two lightboxes with digital prints on foil. Dimensions variable. Commissioned by FVU, The Photographers’ Gallery and Ishikawa Foundation. Supported by Arts Council England. Exhibition view: Joanne, Galerie Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, 2018
Photo © Andrea Rossetti

From August 31 Simon Fujiwara's Joanne is on view for the first time in Denmark at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art.

Presented as film and image environment, Joanne depicts the many faces of Joanne Salley, Simon Fujiwara’s former secondary school teacher. Winner of the 1998 Miss Northern Ireland beauty pageant, artist, teacher and champion boxer, Joanne Salley had a formative influence on Fujiwara as a scholarship student at the prestigious Harrow School for boys in Britain. Several years later, she became the victim of a tabloid newspaper scandal after students discovered and circulated topless photographs of her that had been taken privately. The ongoing media campaign that followed destroyed her career and public image. 

In 2016, Fujiwara and Salley embarked on the production of a short film that aimed, through the use of advertising and marketing techniques, to restore her image.

More information HERE.

Simon Fujiwara, Likeness, 2018, wax sculpture, vintage desk, chair, lamp and objects, handrail, two-channel video (4K, color,sound), dimensions variable, video duration: 19:34 min
Exhibition view: Simon Fujiwara: Revolution, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris 2018
Photo © Andrea Rossetti

Simon Fujiwara has been nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2019 by an international jury. The museum prize is awarded every two years and pays tribute to artists under 40 who live and work in Germany. The four artists will be presented in a joint exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin from August 16, 2019 to February 16, 2020. All four artists show spatial ensembles in which they combine existing and new works. The tonality and handwriting of the four spatial work presentations is very different; what they have in common is an explicit reference to aspects of our contemporary European society.

More information on the prize can be found HERE. 

Pierre Huyghe, Zoodrum 4, 2011, live marine ecosystem, resin shell after Constantin Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse (1910) Ishikawa Foundation, Okayama, Japan. © Pierre Huyghe
Photo © Guillaume Ziccarelli

Coinciding with the inauguration of the Hôtel des Collections on June 29, the MO.CO. unveils the first public presentation of masterpieces from the Ishikawa Collection. This outstanding and relatively recent private collection begun in 2011 by Yasuharu Ishikawa, a Japanese entrepreneur born in 1970 at Okayama, is characterized by exceptional coherence and a Japanese feel that derives primarily from its emphasis on minimal, understated, subtle forms.

The exhibition Intimate Distance, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) features nearly 30 works by artists such as Simon Fujiwara, Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick, Pierre Huyghe, and Anri Sala.

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Simon Fujiwara
Photo © Miro Kuzmanovic, Kunsthaus Bregenz

Esther Schipper congratulates Simon Fujiwara, shortlisted for the 2019 Preis der Nationalgalerie.

Established in 2000 by the Freunde der Nationalgalerie, the Preis is awarded biennially and promotes young, important positions in contemporary art that reflect the internationality and vitality of the art scene in Germany. The four shortlisted artists will present their work in a joint exhibition in fall 2019 at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin.

Simon Fujiwara’s work takes multiple forms including theme park style rides, wax figures, robotic cameras, ‘make-up’ paintings and short films that address the complexity and contradictions of identity in a post-internet, hyper-capitalist world. Fujiwara often investigates themes of popular interest such as tourist attractions, famous icons, historic narratives and mass media imagery and has collaborated with the advertising and entertainment industries to produce his work in a process he describes as ‘hyper-engagement’ with dominant forms of cultural production. His work can be seen as a complex response to the human effects of image fetish, technology and social media on his generation.

Simon Fujiwara, Salvator Mundi Experience, 2019 (detail), mixed media installation. Simon Fujiwara in collaboration with David Kohn architects Photo © Simon Fujiwara

Opening on February 14, Is This Tomorrow? takes as its model Whitechapel Gallery’s landmark exhibition This Is Tomorrow (1956), which featured 37 British architects, painters and sculptors working collaboratively in small groups.

Whitechapel Gallery has invited ten groups of artists, architects and other cultural practitioners, including Simon Fujiwara, to explore the potential of collaboration and offer their visions of the future. 

Read more about the exhibition here.

Simon Fujiwara

Photo © Miro Kuzmanov, Kunsthaus Bregenz

Esther Schipper is pleased to announce the representation of Simon Fujiwara. Over the past decade, Fujiwara (born 1982 in London, lives and works in Berlin) has become known for his staging of large, complex exhibitions that explore the deeply rooted mechanisms of identity construction for both individuals and societies. Addressing the inherent contradictions of image and narrative making – from social media and self-presentation to marketing and history formation – Fujiwara revels in the complexity and paradox of our simultaneous quest for fantasy and authenticity. Crossing multiple media, from sculpture and installation to video and painting and mining worlds as diverse as advertising and archaeology, Fujiwara's works are a constant reportage on the real world sources from which they draw inspiration. However, rather than simply presenting commentary, the artist creates a unique universe of his own – one that is populated with challenging and often absurd new narratives that are as intellectually rigorous as they are emotionally stimulating. 

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