10 September–29 October 2011
Opening:
9 September 2011, 6–9 pm
FELDBUSCHWIESNER
Linienstrasse 155
D- 10115 Berlin
+49 30-69504142
galerie [at] feldbuschwiesner.de
Wed–Sat 12–7 pm, and by appointment
In their first solo exhibition with DANIELE BUETTI, the gallery FELDBUSCHWIESNER is pleased to present new works from the work series Oh boy oh boy from 2010 and 2011.
Daniele Buetti already made a name for himself in the nineties by manipulating and reworking photographs from the world of advertising and fashion, questioning society’s ideals of flawless beauty and the identity-creating pressure to consume. His new work series Oh boy oh boy also illustrates the precarious phenomena of our media-dominated society. Today, as in the past, the artist beguiles our senses in order to disguise his critical approach, which is only evident at a second glance. In this way, the artist reveals to the viewers the malleable nature of their own perception and points to the lack of reflection and the social immaturity of our age, in which we have succumbed to the beautiful yet deceptive surface appearances.
In his new works, Buetti does not use photographs from the advertising industry as a basis but documentary press photographs. The pictures are no longer transformed by perforating or painting over them but are abstracted to such an extent that their original content initially remains hidden. Motifs are gradually removed from their context and replaced by smaller and larger areas of colour, until only the outlines of the central figures, which are also divided up into the smallest segments of colour possible, become visible. The fascinating, multicoloured visual compositions generated in this way are printed on photo paper and covered with acrylic glass, while the contours of the individual picture components have been traced in the glass with a laser cutter.
Using this innovative technique, the artist creates strong, glowing, imaginary worlds, which, when broken down into small sections, are reminiscent of medieval mosaics or church windows. Another distinctive feature is the echo of stylized, geometric, art nouveau elements, garish, blatant forms of Pop Art and modern, digital visual universes, in which the individual elements have dissolved into pixels.
Daniele Buetti portrays the sacred character of media and ultimately confronts it with reality. In fact it is only at a second glance that the viewer perceives that there is dissonance between the contextual quintessence and the visual aesthetic, as the constellations of protagonists have for example been taken from scenarios in prisons such as Abu-Ghraib and Guantánamo. Do we still perceive the atrocity of the flood of images we are confronted with on a day-to-day basis? Do we suppress this through our focus on a consumer-oriented, glitzy world? Buetti only allows the viewer to impartially enjoy the radiant aesthetic of the works for a while until the pieces of the puzzle fit together to communicate another level of visual perception – “Oh boy oh boy”!
Since 2004 Daniele Buetti has been professor of photography at the Kunstakademie in Münster. He is represented in prestigous collections such as DaimlerChrysler Collection, Berlin, la Maison Européene de la Photographie, Paris, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Salzburg, ZKM, Karlsruhe, to name just a few.
His works have been exhibited worldwide in numerous museums and galleries, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Haus der Kunst, München, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kunstmuseum Bern, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main.
