‘Masks’ is a series of over 150 unique abstract paintings that together form a monumental, multi-part, mosaic portrait of the German leader Angela Merkel’s face. Measuring a total of 18 x 24 meters – as if zooming in over 1000 times into her actual face – the fragmented portrait is painted with the same make up used by the world’s most powerful woman on a daily basis. Produced in collaboration with Merkel’s personal make-up artist in Berlin, each por- trait charts not only the colours and materials but also the application techniques of the chancellor’s face, creating a factual document of a historic figure that belies its abstract and expressive appearance. The ethereal images evoke a modern day ‘Turin Shroud’. Only decipherable as skin from a distance of some meters, the image disappears as the viewer approaches the canvas. ‘Masks’ is a visual translation of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ story, a parable of power held in the eye of the beholder. Since all world leaders including Mrs. Merkel wear HD make-up – make-up produced especially for high definition cameras – the works masks cannot be photographed as the material itself is designed to disappear – denying the camera its omnipotence in today’s media landscape – and leaving only our biological faculties of sight and smell to experience the works. 

Simon Fujiwara’s early installations and narrative performances (2008–2012) largely traced his own identity formation as a multi-part auto-fiction presented through the re-staging of his own childhood events, reconstructions of historical places associated with his conception and the mythologising of his origins as an artist. His work can be seen as a complex response and sometimes critique of the increasing cultural obsession with self-presentation that new technologies offered to his generation. Working often in collaboration with others in the telling of supposedly personal stories, Fujiwara’s work explores the concept of the contemporary individual–self-determined, self-narrativised, unique–and presents a highly contingent notion of the self that can only be defined through the participation of others.​

Fujiwara’s recent solo exhibitions include: Joanne, Galerie Wedding, Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin (2018), Hope House, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2018); Figures in a Landscape, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2016), The Humanizer, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016), White Day, Tokyo Opera City Gallery (2016), Three Easy Pieces, The Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge (2014), Grand Tour, Kunstverein Braunschweig (2013), 1982, Tate St. Ives (2012), and Welcome to the Hotel Munber, Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto (2011). Among recent biennials and group exhibitions are: Berlin Biennale 9, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2016), Storylines, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015), Un Nouveau Festival, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014), Sharjah Biennial (2013), Shanghai Biennial (2012), Gwangju Biennial (2012), São Paulo Biennial (2010), and the 53th Venice Biennale (2009). Fujiwara was the recipient of the 2010 Baloise Prize at Art Basel and the 2010 Frieze Cartier Award.