Simon Fujiwara A Tropical Depiction of Who the Baer as a Native Hut in the Style of P. Gauguin, Tahiti?, 2023
Acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas
70,4 x 100,4 cm (unframed)
86 x 116 x 6,1 cm (framed)
The work A Tropical Depiction of Who the Baer as a Native Hut in the Style of P. Gauguin, Tahiti? by Simon Fujiwara is part of the artist’s series of works exploring the style of famous, historically significant artists through the perspective of his cartoon figure, Who the Bær.
In this acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas, Who appears in the form of a jungle hut, recognizable by their long pink tongue, flappy ears and pointed nose. Here, Fujiwara pastiches the vivid style of post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, developed during his stay on the islands of Tahiti, in French Polynesia, in the late 1890s. The title of the work is handwritten in the lower section, in a manner reminiscent of the labels used by anthropologists in ethnographic museums.
In Tahiti, Paul Gauguin sought out the myth of an untouched natural paradise, a lush land inhabited by a society that his native France defined as "primitive" and “exotic”. While Who is represented in Gauguin’s iconic style, the label in the work raises questions about the painter’s reception today. Especially with his use of anachronistic language in the title, Fujiwara places Gauguin’s depictions of South Seas landscapes in context with 19th-century French colonial attitudes toward non-Western cultures.