Studio Pietà (King Kong Komplex) (Installation)

Studio Pietà is based on the artist’s attempt to reconstruct from childhood memory a lost photograph of his bikini-clad British mother held in the arms of a former Lebanese boyfriend. The photograph was taken in the 1960s on a beach near a famous casino just outside of Beirut where she worked as a cabaret dancer. In Fujiwara’s installation spectators stand near a stage-like platform that combines characteristics of a casting studio, cinema, theatrical set and beach complete with chairs, stage lights, a table, screen and large pile of sand. The video’s overlapping narratives chronicle the artist’s desire to recall specific details about the lost photograph, interweaving vague responses to questions in an interview with himself with archival film footage of resort casinos in Beirut and scenes from casting interviews he conducts with model-actors to perform a re-staging of the photograph.