Artists
Simon Fujiwara Born in 1982 in London, Great Britain | Lives and works in Berlin und Mexico City
Portrait
Simon Fujiwara
Simon Fujiwara uses his own biography as a source for his installations, performances and books, which he weaves into a web of cultural myths, concrete places and events, and the meaning and reality of homosexual desire.
Fujiwara’s stories draw upon fictional elements and real occurrences and locations, using them to rattle the ratios of fiction, taboos, and the sanctioned method of writing history. He speculates, fabricates new connections which he verifies with objects and documents, and then repeatedly betrays their believability through exaggeration. Fujiwara’s stories, developed around found objects rooted in a biographical perspective, search for blind spots and create stories that present history as a never-ending process. Innumerable possible combinations take the place of a generally accepted truth.
The work,The personal effects of Theo Grünberg(2010), for example, reconstructs the life of Theo Grünbergs, the 136-year-old who died in 2008. His estate that includes a library of nearly 1,000 volumes as well as lyrical diaries, phonograph records, newspaper clippings, and postcards came through a roundabout way into Fujiwara’s possession. Based on the objects and pictures, the artist reconstructs the life story of an unknown man that becomes a biography of the 20th century which is inextricably linked to the history of Germany.
Education
| 2006-2008 | Städelschule Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Frankfurt/Main |
| 2002-2005 | Architektur (BA), Cambridge University, Great Britain |
Awards
| 2010 | Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel (Statements) |
Solo exhibitions (selection)
| 2011 | Tate St. Ives, St. Ives, Great Britain |
| 2009 |
Impersonator, MAK Center at the Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA Welcome to the Hotel Munber, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt am Main The Museum of Incest, Archive Kabinett, Berlin |
| 2008 | The Closet Gallery, Architecture Foundation, London, Great Britain |
| 2007 | Kein Trinkwasser, Stellwerk, Kassel |
Group exhibitions (selection)
| 2010 |
Here and Now, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf Bringing Up Knowledge, MUSAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain All the Memory in the World, GAM, Turin, Italy Seven Little Mistakes, Museo Marino Marini, Florenz, Italy 20 Years, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, USA Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain Exhibition, Exhibition, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy Huckleberry Finn, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA Disidentification, Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden |
| 2009 |
The Collectors, Nordic Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venedig, Italy Feminine Endings (mit Tim Davies); Scorpio’s Garden, Temporary Kunsthalle, Berlin Berlin – Los Angeles: A Tale of Two (Other) Cities, Massimo de Carlo, Mailand, Italy The Incest Museum; Office of Real Time Activity, Royal College of Art, London, Great Britain Second Row (mit Tobias Rehberger), Oppenheimer, Frankfurt am Main Zeigen, Temporary Kunsthalle, Berlin Provenances, Umberto di Marino, Neapel, Italy What Is Not But Could Be If (Part 1), Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt am Main |
| 2008 | Home is the Place You Left, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, Norway |