Simon Fujiwara The Birth and Rebirth, and Rebirth of Who?, 2026

Simon Fujiwara's large-scale The Birth and Rebirth, and Rebirth of Who?, executed in acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on canvas, depicts a central figure suspended between two Who the Bær characters taking the place of Botticelli's wind god Zephyr on the left and the attendant Hora on the right, set against a luminous yellow ground. Swelling wave forms and organic shapes gather around the figures, while the palette shifts between cool blues and violets and warmer notes of ochre, yellow, pink, and peach.

The work belongs to Fujiwara's series of works recreating iconic paintings by historically significant artists through the perspective of his cartoon figure Who the Bær. The painting draws on Sandro Botticelli's La nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus, c. 1484–86), one of the defining images of the Italian Renaissance. The composition and its principal roles reimagine Botticelli’s scene: Zephyr and Chloris on the left, the attendant Hora on the right, and Venus at the center, replaced in each instance by a likeness of Who the Bær. The Venus figure appears in the process of being lifted from the sea by a metal hook at the center top of the composition, her body fluid and loose.