He says his life changed at 16, sorta like in a game show.

This is Simon Fujiwara: smart as a whip, witty, and wileless (which is not even a word and it’s annoyingly underlined in red now, but the word I want is an antonym of wile, of contrivance, of artifice). Simon Fujiwara is whatever the opposite is of a con-man. But like a con-man, he’s a talker. Listening to him is like having stepped aboard a train of thought, without punkt or komma, as we say in German, without it sounding rehearsed at all, one seamless flow. A toy train of thought, chu-chu!

I mean, how many times have you been to a ‘lecture’ where you haven’t once checked your phone, suppressed a yawn or contemplated a bathroom-run intermezzo. Simon’s ‘lecture’ (and I hate to call it that because that’s so much formal than what Simon does) is … a baby koala.

Ok, so what’s his point, what did he say that was so mesmerizing, so much fun to listen to? His talk began with a What but rather a Who, yes, a who, which rhymes with Pooh, and indeed the entire lecture was a lot like reading the Pandemic Update of the Tao of Pooh. His subject was making art during the first lockdown in 2020, and he came up with the idea of making a cartoon character that could embody the questions pressing upon us today. Who the Bær of course has his own instagram site (@whothebaer) because Who the Bær is the new Kim Kardashian with fewer clothes (because he believes in sustainability) and no plastic surgery… at least yet.

Who the Bær also doesn’t sell any products. But wait! He does. That is to say, Who is not infallible. There’s a Whotique where you can acquire your very-own Who-beach towel, Who-notebook, a Whoodie! He or she or they (Who is a Who, safe to say) is a willing player in the game most of us find ourselves caught up in. That is: becoming Kim Kardashian without becoming Kim Kardashian. Maybe Who wants to be Caitlyn Jenner. Or Kris! Who wants to manage them all! Who wants to be a brand, but then again not. Who wants to be a commentator, or maybe he’s just a (…) moderator who has made a few off-the-cuff observations. Who doesn’t need to write an essay about the meta-implications.

Wait! I’m getting way ahead of myself. But let’s get distracted for just a moment to possibly prove Who’s point:

I just watched Debbie Reynolds pretending to be a human football in the 1950s musical I LOVE MELVIN.

Then I see some relatively boring shots of cultural venues from friends who are all out there (off their sofas!) enjoying events despite Covid (and it is February and we are still deep in lockdown-ish zone) at the Philharmonic, the Volksbühne, and now I already forgot the third. I see my friend Dalad, a Berlin-based Thai chef who has video’d a ship that seemingly levitates above a sea-green blue lagoon.

I see Socialist AOC dancing the Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, whatever that is.

I see a happy grown-up cow wallowing in hay like he’s a puppy seeking attention, a performer. I watch a campy SNL skit on the Superbowl, Denver vs Seattle and a Manking quarterback. Man-king? Is he for real? I mean, that name, it’s just too good to be fake! I see Tamu Mchpherson in about 8 outfits to one song clip, and yes, I had to look hard at that name to type it in here. She tells us she is ‘ready for her champagne coupe and lobster towers this valentines…’ and I didn’t click the more.

I see a meme ‘edibles ain’t shit but *twenty minutes later on the train to work’ (and we see a dude looking at his iPhone while holding on to the shower curtain rod, fully dressed).

I read: an herbal bearhug. An alchemy of soothing lavender, verbena, oat tops (I didn’t know they had bottoms) and mimulus flower essence (look that one up ‘cause I don’t feel that I have time to!) for a sense of calm and ease, sourced by a British biodynamic farm who grow these folk herbs in tune with the moon.

And lastly, before I get way too distracted: the funniest instagram account ever, @arthandlermag posts Maria in her new boots. (No plot spoiler. Go look!) Oh, ok, wait, there’s more: a model friend of mine, archive shot of her on the catwalk of YSL wearing his iconic Mondrian dress. Like!

Benifer dancing in a box at the Superbowl. I guess this means I missed it last night. And oh, I cannot get away now. It’s a clip of the @josephaltuzarra runway show… and, I knew it wouldn’t take long, but actually she never turns up in my feed cause I don’t follow her (even though I am currently obsessed with Keeping Up With) but the surprise was who posted it: a photographer whose work is really fantastic, and she’s having her moment, a post from Carllijn Jacobs whose shots of Kim Kardashian are BEYOND real.

Now I remember my friend Vladimir telling me that there was a shitstorm on Instagram recently because Kim was pictured as a Nefertiti bust and THEY were mad, of course, they, the anonymous storm-stirrers, some sorta nonsense about cultural appropriation. He flashed me a picture on his phone and I see that it’s not the cultural appropriation of Nefertiti, mind you, but the cultural appropriation of Beyoncé and Nina Simone who were once pictured in similar poses.

So, with a pause to do a number of squats and old-fashioned jumping jacks, I just lost or… won all of those images into my morning.

I mean, Who’s to say that I lost my morning to those images, when, let’s say, back in 1999 I would have been reading the paper(s), and today I’d be all the more informed about the coming world war and the ‘Coming Climax in the Ukraine’ – and sex has nothing to do with it. (But maybe it does? I mean, is Putin getting any?) I don’t want to see the ‘Breaking News,’ thank you. It might break me. Let’s not go there. Let’s go back to the uplifting world of Who.

“Once Upon a Who?” was an exhibition that has been evolving since the pandemic, first presented quite early on in the Spring of 2020 at the Fondazione Prada. Simon, in his talk at Esther Schipper gallery in Berlin, talks about these soulful charcoal drawings he made for the show… along the lines of, ‘the world is coming to an end and everything is burning, so why not use whatever’s left to make some dark drawings: charcoal!’

We’re standing in front of an animated (biographical) film he’s made of Who the Bær, ‘a bær with no race, gender, sexuality,’ but ok, he’s probably a guy, because Who goes topless in blue jeans. We see paintings, or rather collages, of Who as a disrupter of art history, a Who-rinal made by Whochamp, we see Who the Bær jumping off of David Hockney’s swimming pool diving board, Who’s Bigger Splash. Who is a cartoon, Simon tells us, but essentially a collage. But no, that’s too mundane. Who is a hedonist! Who’s been sucked up into the machine, in search of authenticity and wrought by anxiety. Who’s questioning his / her / their) identity, just like all of us who just went through this awful and wonderful TIME WARP.

Who is a Matisse blue cutout, Who is a Calder sculpture because he is modern and fraught, Who is a mask at the ethnographical museum in Berlin which is housed in a ‘cartoon’ building, Simon tells us, Who is BECOMING Michelle Obama, and yes, that’s where we’d all rather be. (I guess.) Who is in search of a heart, the Tin Man who has just made an exit from Oz and doesn’t know where he’s going.

I buy a t-shirt. That was the best rock concert ever. #WHoodstock.

Why April?

I adored April from the moment we met. Her elaborate style, her tremendous charm, her whimsical humour and her contagious laughter. I am convinced she has something very fundamental to say, no matter what the subject is. Whatever she writes, it is pure intellectual bohemian delight. (Needless to say I am the proud owner of three of her fabulous @helloaftermarch shirts. A showstopper wherever I go.) I ran into April at the opening of the most noteworthy Simon Fujiwara show at Esther Schipper and she immediately agreed to write a piece about Simon’s „Who the Bær“ exhibition for Sibylle.life. I hope you enjoyed her article.
—Sibylle.