MA Week 9 - Artist Research : Simon Fujiwara

Simon Fujiwara, "Aspire", installed at University of Leeds, 2015

I first came across Simon Fujiwara when his public artwork, “Aspire” was unveiled at the University of Leeds in June 2015. The work resembles a brick chimney and is Fujiwara’s view of the history of the city of Leeds, and in particular the University. It is made of cast jesmonite with a galvanised steel core. At the base coal is incorporated indicating the industries upon which the city was built. The colours then become lighter as the chimney rises, to a pale verdigris which depicts Leeds’s current economy which is “almost complete immaterial industry – entertainment, services, education”. In Leeds, a new, post-globalised urbanism flourishes. Or so thinks the artist (Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, 2015).

I like this piece. I like the textured surface, and the way the colours pale and rise and reflect the massive plate glass windows of the new library, in front of which it sits. I am less convinced about Fujiwara’s take on my home city’s history. Of course, he is duty bound to produce an uplifting, optimistic piece of work as a commission for a University. The name is not only intended to reflect that, it’s a pun on the two nearby church spires (neither of which, incidentally, now serves a church). My own lived experience of de-industrialisation, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, is quite different. However, I could relate to Fujiwara’s depiction of bricks, having started out on my own brick investigations. Taking both at face value, my work and Fujiwara’s work are connected by what one physically views when one looks at them.

But Fujiwara likes to play with memory. In 2012, Tate St. Ives staged Fujiwara’s first major UK show, “Since 1982” (Grant, 2012). In this exhibition, he drew upon and embellished his own lived experience. One example is “Welcome to the Hotel Munber”. His parents had lived in Spain before his birth, running the aforementioned hotel. Fujiwara presented a performance piece with the assertion that his early life in the hotel had strongly influenced his art, whilst at the same time noting that this could not have happened as he was born after his parents left Spain. Fujiwara notes he invented “a whole new narrative in an attempt to lend significance to the work” (Martin, 2011, p91).

In his 2012 piece, “Saint Simon” in the Tate exhibition, he investigated the Mexican saint San Simón, also known as Maximón, who is popular in Guatemala. The saint is venerated during Holy Week when his effigy is paraded in the street, usually with a mask for a face. In Fujiwara’s work, he intended to project himself psychologically into his saintly namesake, replacing the mask with an image of his own face (Tate, n.d., n.p). Here we see a manipulation of memory conflated with his own identity.

This idea of reworking memories is of growing interest to me and I mentioned it in blog post about Stuart Whipps. Here I think Fujiwara takes it a stage further by openly acknowledging that some of his work is fictional , yet persuading an audience – and possibly himself?? – to take it seriously. The idea of manipulating his own identity means he puts himself almost bodily into someone else’s past and questions the idea of the believers. Subversion and manipulation are always so interesting ; they make you question what you’re doing, and why.

Fujiwara also has two pieces in the British Art Show 8 ; a video loop about a Mexican rubbish picker and a Berlin web designer who has no arms, and three shaved fur coats stretched over frames. These are comments on wealth and materialism (Leeds Art Gallery (1), 2015). The work discussed in this blog post shows Fujiwara’s breadth of practice. It seems he will not allow his practice to be described simply, nor allow himself to be pigeon-holed; I have the idea he likes to re-invent himself, almost, and keep his audience guessing. I find his approach both challenging and inspirational.