Simon Fujiwara

Born in 1982 in London, United Kingdom.

Lives and works in Berlin.

At the core of the work of Simon Fujiwara is a question – what does it mean to be a ‘Self’ in the 21st century? With humor, inventiveness, delight and rigor, his works reflect on existential quandaries such as: how should one construct a self today? How has technology altered our identities? Is there such thing as an authentic ‘me’?

From performative lectures, video installations and paintings, to the creation of entire themed ‘worlds’, his decade long practice employs a range of artistic strategies that seek to expand our notions of race, gender, national and sexual identities in a world increasingly mediated through technology and images. Often employing and even parodying his own identity in his work, he confronts these potent cultural topics in unexpected ways - mining fields such as advertising or theme park design or drawing on art historical strategies from Dadaism to Pop and Conceptual art.

His work is informed by his early studies in architecture and operate as ‘imaginary structures’ in which ethical and moral conundrums can coexist with the fantastical, surreal and absurd. As such, his work creates spaces in which disconcerting aspects of life under 21st century capitalism can be examined in a playful and even pleasurable way.

Fujiwara is the recipient of the 2010 Baloise Prize at Art Basel and the 2010 Frieze Cartier Award. He was shortlisted for the 2019 Preis der Nationalgalerie.

His work is held in the collections of the American Embassy, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Sammlung Verbund, Vienna; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; The Prada Foundation, Milan; Leeds University, Leeds, and the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main.