Simon Fujiwara Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre)

Angela Liu:

You might have noticed that this painting by Simon Fujiwara looks similar to another work by Picasso in this room. This painting was commissioned for this exhibition to respond to Picasso’s 1951 painting, Massacre in Korea. It features Fujiwara’s fictional cartoon bear character, Who the Bær, who lives in the world of images and develops an insatiable desire to consume and transform into popular images of past and present.

Who the Bær is no stranger to Picasso, who has referenced the artist many times. Fujiwara imagines Who the Bær would say, ‘When you think of an artist, you think of Picasso.’

Take a closer look at Fujiwara’s larger and more vibrant version of the painting and you may spot other references to Picasso: a weeping woman, a bird that resembles Picasso’s peace dove, as well as a bear holding up a picture of Guernica. Fujiwara takes these elements from Picasso’s iconic work and adapts them for our present time. Details such as mobile phones and drones point to the contemporary setting but also remind us how we are part of this media landscape – as both the source and the recipient of this world of images.

This work is a commentary on how images circulate, take up meaning, and evolve. It invites us to reflect on our relationship with images and media in our time and age.

NARRATOR:

This painting, titled Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre), was made by Simon Fujiwara in 2024. Acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on canvas, it is 220 centimetres tall and 400 centimetres wide, about the size of four doors placed side by side.

The ‘who’ from the title refers to a cartoon bear named Who the Bær, created by Fujiwara. The painting is a contemporary response to Pablo Picasso’s 1951 painting Massacre in Korea, with every depicted character being Who the Bær. The work takes after Picasso’s original: both paintings feature a standoff between two groups in the wilderness, but Fujiwara’s version features a richer and more vivid palette. All the characters are brightly coloured, and the ubiquitous Who the Bær is depicted with big ears, upturned snout, and a long tongue.

The group on the left consists of four women, two children, and a baby. Half or fully nude, they have contorted faces and long, worm-like tongues hanging out of open mouths. They appear to be in extreme distress or anger. The group on the right comprises seven outlandish human-like creatures depicted in yellow hues. They wield pink blunt swords and smartphones pointed towards the women and children. Their pink tongues dangle as yellow saliva flies from their mouths. All of the figures are similar in height, occupying about two-thirds of the canvas. A drone hovers above the space between the two groups, as if filming the confrontation. In the distance, behind the women and children, a verdant hill is visible, and on its peak is a cuboid building with a dome like the head of a teddy bear.

On the left, the four women stay close together. Two of them have protruding bellies that suggest they are pregnant. One stands on the far left, wearing a blue T-shirt that rides up, exposing her enlarged belly. Her T-shirt is decorated with a white flying dove that also has its long tongue out. She stares up at the sky as she frowns and scratches her forehead with one hand. The other hand is protectively placed over a child standing on tiptoe beside her, their face buried in her waist. The woman next to her has downcast eyes and a tortured expression. She holds an infant in one hand and a black smartphone in the other. To her right is a green-faced woman, her tongue hanging out of her mouth while someone else’s tongue wraps around her protruding abdomen. She holds out a monochrome image with outstretched arms and shoves it in the direction of the group on the right. The image resembles Picasso’s Guernica but is populated by monsters with horns, horse muzzles, elongated snouts, and large ears. Wedged between one of her raised arms and her body is a short-haired woman with a purplish face and an ‘X’ for one eye. She is pointing a finger at the Guernica image. A child has one arm looped around the short-haired woman’s thigh and is holding a brown teddy bear with an upturned nose in the other hand. All the women have long, winding tongues spraying drops of yellow saliva. Behind the two women in the middle of the group, a raised hand holds a rose sideways, its flower pointing to the right at the other group.

The grotesque, human-like figures on the right appear to be marching towards the women and children. They have firm outlines and greyish-blue or green-purple bodies. Some seem to be wearing round helmets or face masks, while others carry smartphones in their hands. At the back of the group, a creature with a blue-purple face waves a white flag decorated with orange, blood-like water droplets. In the bottom right, another creature throws its head back, its skull swung open like a lid as it laughs with outstretched arms. A raised, purplish hand can be seen behind the creatures, clutching a dumbbell with a sharp, thorn-like tip pointing at the women and children.