Sebastian Bieniek - Facination No. 22

When you purchase, you will receive a certificate of authenticity issued in your name

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THE ARTWORK:

For sale is an overpainted collage from two portrait photos created by the artist in 2014, which is part of his "Facination" series, consisting solely of overpainted paintings and overpainted photos.

The original photos depict German soldiers from World War II in uniform. They are dated April 1942, as the note on the back indicates.

Front and back hand-signed. Back titled.

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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 single person.

The “Self” thus exists for the artist on two levels: a realistic one and a meta level, linked with ideas of guardian angels and fate – and in a broader sense with the world itself.

The work thus takes up the ancient, universal concept of a world split into two parts – for example in the distinction between "ancestors and the living", "humans and gods" or even "software and hardware", which ultimately is nothing more than a separation into "idea and body" or "command and action".

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 1998–2000 of the then-known "Kunsthaus Tacheles" in Berlin, where he shared a studio with artist Chiharu Shiota.

During that time Bieniek became known for his drastic actions and conceptual art. Later he studied film directing and made films. From 2008 he painted again, and by 2013 he gained global recognition through his paintings and photos with ambivalent messages and portrayals.

His work has repeatedly gone viral worldwide since 2013, been shown on television and published in the world’s largest and most important magazines, achieving broad reach and recognition, and extending into the music and even fashion scenes.

Thus, for example, American musician Pharrell Williams showed a Bieniek work several times in his 2014 hit video "Marilyn Monroe," and even the singer Madonna contacted Bieniek in 2016 (Vogue Spain article) and asked him to design the cover for her "X-Album." In 2015 the French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus had his models walk the Paris Fashion Week runway with a face personally painted by Bieniek, 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 primarily created social-media- and state-critical conceptual works, often embedded in humorous and ironical ideas. In this way he remained true to his long-standing subversive motto and definition of art and has never allowed himself to be co-opted or used.