Daniele Buetti

(real fast: starting wednesday (tomorrow) my blog will be updated weekdays at noon, to make it easier to check, since i tend to be all over the place with the times of my daily posts! enjoy!)

        If Tracey Emin were altering photographs instead of making quilts and fluorescent lights they might look something like the work of Daniele Buetti. Though unlike Emin, Buetti is a male, his images are equally confronting and ask some of the same questions (removing of course Emin's frequent focus on herself as a female; relationships, abortions, etc, and shifting his main focus to mass media culture and its representations of women). Another thing he has managed to capture that harkens back to Emin's work, something rare in pieces with a photographic base, is the hand of the artist. The photos Buetti starts with are not his own (they are mainly from magazines), but he uses various techniques to alter and effectively "scar" these images.
        In his series Dreams Result in More Dreams (second image) Buetti has poked pinholes in the photographs, changing or adding to the image, and frequently using this method to add text as well. He then mounts the photographs in front of light boxes, creating a both beautifully and alarmingly stark and overpowering effect over the sometimes busy images. The images include women seemingly bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth, and hands and text such as "is sex work real work?" (reminiscent of Emin's posed questions in fluorescents; "Is Anal Sex Legal" and "Is Legal Sex Anal") -Buetti displaying his interests and issues with the use of sexuality in culture and media.
        He pushes this one step further in Looking for Love Goodfellows (first image), in which he uses the effect of again, pin pricking photographs, but this time from the other side and without a light box, adding color instead. He effectively "brands" (by both definitions) models with logos and and designer names.
        It is important to note that though Buetti's photographs (and drawings, to which he applies the same effects) are interesting enough on their own, he is also a master of creating environment. Also an installation artist (see last image), Buetti has incorporated this into the way he displays his 2d image work to create strange and sometimes unnerving spaces (3rd image).
        (Quickly, as some background info, Buetti is 53 and a Swiss artist, he has been working in mixed media since the 80's.)
        I have a strong feeling that his work is extremely experiential and only reads to a certain degree through images, so I hope to someday encounter some of his work in person.
        In the mean time, here is his website which is definitely worth some time.


images: buetti.aeroplastics.net