SIMON FUJIWARA

Picture a Who on a mountain top,

Wind in their hair and their resting ears aflop,

Pling! sound the bells of a bright new day,

A whole new Who is just another swipe away...

Esther Schipper Berlin is pleased to announce Simon Fujiwara’s Who’s Spiritual Journey?, the artist’s third solo presentation with the gallery.

Fujiwara’s cartoon character Who the Baer was created by the artist as a way to playfully critique societal questions through a lovable character. In Who’s Spiritual Journey?, Who the Baer seeks out a spiritual new self through the abstract images of the past, searching for a meaning in forms that once promised transcendence. But what kind of spirituality is possible for a flat cartoon character who has no soul to soothe? Who’s Spiritual Journey will feature three new large-scale paintings within a site-specific installation exploring belief, branding and selfhood in an age of endless reinvention.

On March 19, 2026, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean will open Simon Fujiwara: A Whole New World, a comprehensive overview presenting nearly twenty years of work.

Simon Fujiwara is a British-Japanese artist, born in 1982 in London, living and working in Berlin.

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

Fujiwara’s recent solo exhibitions include: Simon Fujiwara – Who’s Iconic? Paintings, Drawings and Maquettes From the Whoseum of Who the Baer, G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig, (2025); Dreams of an Owl, Who the Bær and the Wounded Planet, Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2025); Simon Fujiwara: It’s a Small World, Kiasma, Helsinki (2024); Simon Fujiwara, Who the Bær, Prada Aoyama, Tokyo (2022); Simon Fujiwara, Hello Who?, CIRCA Art, public screenings in London, Seoul, New York, Milan, Berlin, Melbourne, Los Angeles (2022); Simon Fujiwara, new work, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2021); Who the Bær, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2021); Hope House, Blaffer Art Museum, Dallas (2020); Joanne, Arken, Skovvej (2019); Revolution, Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris (2018); Joanne, Galerie Wedding, Berlin (2018); Hope House, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2018); Joanne, The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2016); Figures in a Landscape, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2016); The Humanizer, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016); White Day, Tokyo Opera City Gallery, Tokyo (2016).

The artist’s work is represented in the collections of the American Embassy, London; 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; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Prada Foundation, Milan; Leeds University, Leeds; and the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main.

Courtesy Esther Schipper.