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Born in 1955 in Fribourg (CH).
Lives and works in Zurich and Munster.
www.aeroplastics.net
www.hilger.at
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Daniele Buetti works not only with photography but also with video. He also works with installation art. The artist draws his material from advertising and media representations of beauty and luxury. His concern is to see how such images affect how we view the world and how we conceive beauty. By extension, he believes that these contemporary icons have replaced religion.
As he says himself,
"Advertising beauties, labels, super stars, images, lifestyle are signs and concepts of a phenomenon I am interested in less for aesthetic than for socio-cultural reasons: Which effects does the media omnipotence in our society have on our mind? In which manner do images change our perceptions of the world and to what extent do the media castrate our senses? Some of the central questions in the context of working with and on the iconography of pop culture are these: Which function and role do media play in the formation of identity? What ultimately constitutes indentity, what does it represent? Will identity be eclipsed of completely replaced by "images" in a world which is characterised by electronic and print media? And from here to the question: Why is the individual so rarely able to form its very own image of the world, to form its own, independent opinion, consequently craving outside help and patterns of orientation? A further question concerns the manner in which beauty icons today have becoming religious substitutes? Just like the figurines of saints offered on sale in churches, newspaper kiosks appear like displays of devotional objects where the portraits of modern saints promise salvation. Or, to put it differently, the fusion of absolute beauty and economic success at the beginning of the 21st century is the late-capitalist answer to the prediction of Dostojewski's "idiot" that beauty would save the world."
The images presented in large dimension light boxes have a sculptural aspect that goes beyond the simple photographic frame, especially as they are pierced with tiny holes that reveal shapes, arabesques and flows of light, but also words forming sentences addressed to the beholder.
As Pierre-Yves Desaive explains, "during his visit to the cathedral of Monreale in Palermo, Daniele Buetti was deeply affected by the twelfth century mosaics covering the interior walls. Beyond the aesthetic emotion, he doubtlessly perceived a formal link to his own work which has, for several years already, included energetic luminous fluxes, like a ballet of photons upon golden backgrounds placed there by Byzantine artists".
Why light? Daniele Buetti explains:
"Light, no doubt, is the most seductive and the most magical of all the media. Flashing, colourfully sparkling spots enthrall us like moths drawn to the light. This simple, indeed crude trick allows me to lead the observers very close to the work. To seduce, to bewitch them, in order then to, almost imperceptibly, confront them with sentences and questions, swirling as speech bubbles around the models: "Have you ever considered suicide?", or "Would you watch a capital punishment on television?", or also "What do you feel guilty for?"We must no forget that man is a sentimental creature. We are all too prepared to let ourselves be lulled by syrupy kitsch in order to gain access to other, more pleasurable spheres. If, and when, we want to avoid the confrontation with the strategies of seduction or see through them, is an indication for how tricky the relation between seducer and seduced in fact is."
The work of Daniele Buetti is situated between iconoclasm and iconoduly ; it bypasses the codes of fashion photography and advertising in order to better reveal its fetish-like power and show us how none of us are completely agnostic to the generalised emotional effects merchandising has.
AFL / JPH
(The quotations from Daniel Buetti are taken from his interview with Javier Diaz-Guardiola and ABC Cultural, Madrid in 2005).
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