Danielle Buetti

Picture it. Claudia and Naomi, Gisele and Kate, supermodels extraordinaire. Their ultra-chic, ultra-thin bodies scrawled over with the phrase: “Never Enough of You” and similarly glossy women made to bear growths on their bodies that resemble the trademarks they’re employed to advertise: Levis, Gucci and the like. Such are the lifestyle and media code reformulations that Daniele Buetti has enacted in recent years, bringing the phantasmic effects of mass communication precisely to a point. Such media-driven subjects have seen Buetti dubbed the “new king of pop”–which designation, while royal, short-sights much of the extensive oeuvre he has produced over the last 10 years, a body of work that explores the topic of our consumption-happy society in a much larger context. From Buetti’s performance-like beginnings, this monograph moves on to an overview of his most important installations, photographic panels, illuminated boxes and videos, and traces the origins of the “winged cross,” Buetti’s trademark from the late 80s.