Simon Fujiwara Who Are the Weeping Women? (Lamentation), 2024
The figure in Who Are the Weeping Women? (Lamentation) is drawn from Fujiwara’s large-scale painting Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre). This painting is based on Picasso’s anti-war painting Massacre in Korea (1951), which itself is influenced by Francisco Goya’s The Third of May 1808 (1814) and Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian series (1867–1869). These paintings focus on the collective violence experienced by civilians during war, depicting soldiers preparing to execute a group of women and children. In Who vs Who vs Who?, the figure is part of that group about to be executed. Fujiwara’s Who Are the Weeping Women? (Lamentation), shifts the narrative by focusing on the individual suffering of this figure, while still drawing a connection to the anti-war sentiments explored in the larger composition.