Watch Now: Simon Fujiwara In Conversation with Jeppe Ugelvig
Part of Frieze London Talks 2021
Part of Frieze London Talks 2021
Overseen by independent curator Jeppe Ugelvig, Frieze London Talks 2021 focused on artistic collaboration and economies of exchange.
The work of British-Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara (b.1982, London) offers a unique view into the mechanics of identity construction and the ‘industry of the individual’ in contemporary life. His works emerge from a personal grappling with the contradictions of inherited racial, national, historical, cultural values. In his most ambitious projects that range from a full reconstruction of the Anne Frank House (Hope House, 2016–18) to the “re-branding campaign” for his former high school art teacher after a nude media scandal (Joanne, 2016), Fujiwara deftly navigates culturally potent topics with enigmatic and surprising approaches that broaden conversations and avoid didacticism. Through his multiple formal strategies, Fujiwara is able to use the tools of our hyper-mediated world—from advertising, museum making to theme park design—to hold a distorted mirror to our contemporary, liberal societies possessed with spectacle, fantasy and authenticity.
