A sequel to Texte, Texte 2 is another pocket-size artist's book presenting a mix bag from Bischof's exuberant collection of headlines, slogans, jokes, junk mail, lyrics, dialogues from movie scenes, aphorisms and a whole lot more—a present-day selection and yet a subjective quintessence of the textual archive he has amassed over the years.
Wild, boisterous and humorous—Beni Bischof's mises-en-scène of his unbridled creative urges deftly combine all kinds of media, everything from wall-sized paintings to filigree drawings and grotesque collages, from surreal objects to outlandish mixed-media sculptures. His trenchant artwork reflects both the banality of everyday life and controversial political issues. Bischof virtuosically leads the viewer out onto thin ice to expose the inner workings of the mass media and the illusions of glamour they manufacture. Psychobuch (2014), his first book to be published by Edition Patrick Frey, was at once an overall view of his copious oeuvre and a self-contained artist's book unto itself. Texte (2015) came out for the presentation of the 2015 Manor Art Prize and an associated solo show at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
(Nadia Veronese)
Born 1976, Beni Bischof lives and works in St. Gallen. It all started when he began publishing laser-copied artist's magazines in 2005 as an independent means of distributing his drawings, collages, and texts. The speed of production suited his impetuous, prolific output. It was not long before he found an additional, three-dimensional outlet for his obsessions by adding sculpture, painting, and installations to his repertoire. Often using everyday objects, Bischof creates bizarre objects whose coherence he reinforces with plaster and paint. He applies similar techniques of combining, reassembling, and reworking to images appropriated from fashion magazines, trivial literature, LP covers, and the like, overpainting them and modifying them digitally or even mechanically.
Beni Bischof was awarded the St. Gallen Manor Art Prize for the year 2015.
