Sebastian Bieniek - Schutzengel (Faceination No. 9)

With the purchase you receive a certificate of authenticity issued in your name

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THE ARTWORK:

For sale is a portrait painting overpainted by the artist in 2014, which is part of his "Facination" series, consisting only of overpainted paintings and overpainted photographs.

The original painting dates from 1924. Thus the canvas is 102 years old and shows the typical signs of aging for its age. For the artist, this belongs to the work, because part of the concept is to build a bridge between "now and then." The paint layers are therefore partly old and partly new.

Size: 46.5 x 36 cm.
Front and back hand-signed. Back titled and stamped.

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ABOUT THE SERIES:

The series "Facination" by the Berlin-based artist Sebastian Bieniek plays with notions of guardian angels and fate in connection with the tragic fate of humanity and aims to create a window between two worlds, such as "here" and "there" or "now" and "then," and to build a unity in the form of a person from it.

The "self" thus exists for the artist on two levels: a realistic one and a meta-level, which is linked with notions of guardian angels and fate—and in a broader sense with the world itself.

The work thus tackles the ancient, universal concept of a world divided into two parts—such as the distinction between "ancestors and the living," "humans and gods," or also "software and hardware"—which ultimately is nothing more than a separation into "idea and body" or "command and deed."

Bieniek seeks in his work a visible form for both—and thus for the whole.

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THE ARTIST:

The artist Sebastian Bieniek was born in 1975 in Poland. He studied art at the HBK Braunschweig and the UdK Berlin with Marina Abramović, John M. Armleder, and Katharina Sieverding, and was a member from 1998 to 2000 of the then-known as the "artistic center of the city" Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin, where he shared a studio with the artist Chiharu Shiota.

During this time Bieniek became known for his radical actions and conceptual art. He later studied film directing and made films. From 2008 he painted again and by 2013 he had become world-famous through his paintings and photographs with ambivalent statements and depictions.

His work has repeatedly gone viral worldwide since 2013, has been shown on television and published in the world’s most important magazines, and achieved not only broad diffusion and recognition but also influence in the music and even fashion scenes.

For example, in 2014 American musician Pharrell Williams repeatedly featured a work by Bieniek in his hit video "Marilyn Monroe." Even the singer Madonna contacted Bieniek in 2016 (Vogue Spain article) and asked him to design the cover for her "X-Album." In 2015 French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus had his models walk the Paris Fashion Week with a Bieniek-painted face on the fashion show, earning him the prestigious LVMH Special Jury Prize. In 2015 Sebastian Bieniek was named by The Culture Trip Magazine as one of the "Top 5 Influential Contemporary Berlin-Based Artists."

After 2019 Bieniek largely created socially and state-critical conceptual works embedded with humorous and ironical ideas. In this way he remained true to his subversive creed and definition of art and never allowed himself to be co-opted or used.