Simon Fujiwara’s ‘Cartoonified’ Quest for Identity

ANA VUKADIN, Frieze, June 2, 2021
At Fondazione Prada, the artist’s site-specific installation plays on puns and cultural icons to debate identify politics through the story of a cartoon bear called Who
Conceived during the first COVID-19 lockdown, ‘Who the Bær’, Simon Fujiwara’s current solo exhibition at Fondazione Prada, is the artist’s response to spending the past year living in a world almost entirely mediated by on-screen imagery. Overwhelmed by a period marked not only by the pandemic but also crucial social change, the artist sought refuge in drawing and collage, combining his own original characters with photographs and news stories culled from the internet – from Elon Musk’s space launch to the Black Lives Matter protests. In Milan, Fujiwara has extended this practice, creating a site-specific installation overflowing with collages, drawings, mixed-media sculptures and stop-motion animations dedicated to the adventures of an adorable cartoon bear that lends the exhibition its name.
 
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