25% Painting

The Swiss artist David Renggli, a child of postmodernism,weaves popular culture and art historical topoiinto his work with a playful ease, molding it into ahomogenous whole. The origins of this book lie inRenggli's exhibition The Charm of Ignorance(2013)that was shown in Museum Bellpark in Kriens. Renggli mounted almost two thousand pictures in arigid "St. Petersburg hanging. " The collages, incorporatingimages from fashion and porn magazines,art catalogues and discovered photographs, interlaceopposites. The observer loses himself in thepresentation and falls into a trance-like state; a celebrationof the artistic act, which through creativeacceleration (the artist spends about three minuteson a single picture) produces a huge amount ofsingle works. At first glance they appear familiar. Only undermore careful observation do they reveal their surrealgrotesque absurdity. Surprise moments and repetitionas an aesthetic principle are returning themes inRenggli's work and lead to a magnificent state ofambivalence which connects us with the either/orsides of a problem. 25% Painting is a collection of approx. 500 of the originalapprox. 2000 collages that were repeatedly and arbitrarilyre-arranged during the printing process, makingeach book its own unique work of art. David Renggli (b. 1974), Swiss artist and musician,lives and works in Zurich and Texas.