The "Fabulous Beasts" are made entirely from single fur coats purchased in Berlin and produced after 1950. The coats are first deconstructed into their tailor pattern parts before being shaved in several places to reveal the archaeology of their production, including manufacturers' stamps, patchwork details, dye marks, skin diseases, blemishes, and the handwriting of the producers. The hides are then sewn back together and bound into a book. In its new state, this once-luxury commodity to be worn transforms into a book to be 'read' – communicating its own production story not as narrative or information but through its own perverse sensuality.
Simon Fujiwara
Simon Fujiwara (b. 1982) has created a complex and rich body of interconnecting works that encompass performance, film, installations, sculptures and texts. Bringing personal experiences both real and imagined into contact with larger historical events, his expansive practice has been described as an ‘autobiographical journey through the architecture of modern life - constantly rebuilt as it is retold’. His exhibitions and projects often function as invisible structures in which players - family members, real-life friends, historic figures - and events past and the future cohabit and interact generating scenarios in which the real and the imagined are no longer distinguishable. Often appearing himself within his works and shifting into various guises, Fujiwara’s personal narratives form an unstable core from which the world is observed and re-performed, confronting us with our notions of truth, authenticity, morality and the credibility of the artist as narrator.
Simon Fujiwara
Simon Fujiwara (b. 1982) has created a complex and rich body of interconnecting works that encompass performance, film, installations, sculptures and texts. Bringing personal experiences both real and imagined into contact with larger historical events, his expansive practice has been described as an ‘autobiographical journey through the architecture of modern life - constantly rebuilt as it is retold’. His exhibitions and projects often function as invisible structures in which players - family members, real-life friends, historic figures - and events past and the future cohabit and interact generating scenarios in which the real and the imagined are no longer distinguishable. Often appearing himself within his works and shifting into various guises, Fujiwara’s personal narratives form an unstable core from which the world is observed and re-performed, confronting us with our notions of truth, authenticity, morality and the credibility of the artist as narrator.
Preparing “Fabulous Beasts”