LONDON.- Frieze Art Fair announced that the winner of The Cartier Award 2010 is the British/Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara, who is based in Berlin and Mexico City. His previous works have encompassed performance-style lectures, fictional writings and installations. His winning proposal was selected from over 500 applications by artists from all over the world.
For Frieze Art Fair 2010, sponsored for the seventh year by Deutsche Bank, Fujiwara plans to present a new site-specific work, Frozen; an installation based on the fictive premise that an ancient lost city has been discovered beneath the site of the fair. Throughout the fair, visitors will encounter archaeological digs, displays of found artefacts and graphic panels describing a historic civilization that was once a hub of art and commerce. Employing his fluid, personal approach to historical interpretation, Fujiwara will present the public with a proposition: that today’s art market is just one manifestation of an ancient and intrinsic need – to create, preserve, sanctify and fetishise art objects.
The Cartier Award is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading art awards. It allows an emerging artist based outside the UK to realise a major project at Frieze Art Fair as part of the critically acclaimed Frieze Projects programme. Sarah McCrory, curator of Frieze Projects, commenting on the announcement said: ‘By researching and exploring tales of this imaginary city, Fujiwara uncovers the fundamentally human desire to collect and assign value and status to desirable objects. He will create a fictitious scenario by manipulating histories relating to mythical and real sites of cultural discovery, which will have a specific resonance with the fair’s audience.’
The Cartier Award forms an exciting and visible element of Cartier’s long-standing commitment to the commissioning and display of contemporary art. Grazia Quaroni, a member of the selection panel, and curator of the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris added: ‘Simon Fujiwara’s Frozen is not only an original and complex interpretation of the game that is the Cartier Award but also for the particular exhibition context of Frieze Art Fair. His skilful use and manipulation of fiction, his ability to link different parts of the same project, his capacity to make the entire work readable by the public, his attention to audience involvement, all conquered this year’s jury. Fujiwara shows an impressive maturity for his young age, keeping a freshness and humour to intricate works.’
In 2010, Gasworks, London's outstanding complex of artists’ studios, will once again host the award’s residency. Simon Fujiwara studied Architecture at Cambridge University and Fine Art at Städelschule Hochschule für Bildende Künst in Frankfurt am Main. Selected shows and projects from 2010 include Manifesta 8, Murcia; 29th São Paulo Biennial; Bringing Up Knowledge, MUSAC, Leon; Huckleberry Finn, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; 100 Years, Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf. Forthcoming shows include a week-long performance project for Performa 11, New York, curated by Jens Hoffmann, and a solo exhibition at TATE, St.Ives.
