Simon Fujiwara Who's Picasso-esque Yogic Image Confinement Tondo?, 2024

A large-scale tondo, Simon Fujiwara's Who's Picasso-esque Yogic Image Confinement Tondo? is a painting from the artist's body of work featuring Who the Bær. Its iconography draws on Pablo Picasso’s famous anti-war manifesto-painting Guernica from 1937.

Fujiwara's work is a contemporary response to Picasso’s original. Depicting the specific bombing of Guernica, a town in Spain during the civil war, the original painting has since risen to the status of icon, symbolizing a call for peace and a cry against all war.

In Fujiwara’s reimagining of the work, we see Who the Bear once again find themselves travelling through iconic works to explore their identity. The form depicted has both male and female genitalia as well as many sets of limbs, some extending away from the ‘body’ while others touch and grab each other. Drops of yellow liquid surround Bear and their tongue is extended and wraped around them.