Simon Fujiwara Read Bio Collapse
Simon Fujiwara (b. 1982, London) is a British-Japanese artist living and working in Berlin. The work of Simon Fujiwara 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, and 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 to museum-making to theme park design—to hold a distorted mirror to our contemporary liberal societies possessed by spectacle, fantasy, and authenticity.