Author Description

The artist book / exhibition catalog Playful Subversion from Swiss artist Beni Bischof is a wild journey through 945 black-and-white images taken from every available web portal in a crash of cultures, identity, humor and political comment a riotous paranoia about the world we live in and the billion of images that assault our senses every single day. It reads like an oversized flipbook except you will need one hell of a pocket to tuck this fat little monster into your coat pocket. Produced for his first Austrian solo exhibition at Fotohof Salzburg, it does exactly as the title suggests. A highly entertaining vade mecum, it blends together the great icons of the culture industry in a high-contrast panorama of our postmodern media culture. The contrast of black-and-white reproductions not only deconstructs and profanes the odd hero or two but also generates a subversive maelstrom, the pull of which is difficult to escape. Photographs + graphics by: Beni Bischof, Samuel Bänziger, Olivier Hug