Simon Fujiwara Who Woke Up?, 2026
116,2 x 86,1 x 6,1 cm (framed)
Who Woke Up?, executed in acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas, reworks the awakening scene of Sleeping Beauty. Framed by red curtains, a prince leans in with closed eyes to kiss the princess, who lies in bed wide awake—and outraged, pushing him away. Sleeping Beauty is known from Charles Perrault's 1697 tale and the Brothers Grimm's Dornröschen, and above all from Disney's 1959 animated film, in which a princess, cursed to sleep for a hundred years, is woken by the kiss of a prince. Here the kiss no longer redeems: the princess—as the title suggests, no sleeping beauty—is already awake, and wants nothing more than to get the prince away from her. Through fairy-tale imagery, the work raises the question of consent: where the tale requires that the princess be kissed, here she has a choice, and refuses.