Noncyclopedia / Disobedience: Acts of Artistic Resistance (2023 - ongoing)

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The idea behind this series was to take the branding strategy of clothing companies—where their own logo becomes a core part of their product identity—and subvert it by altering the logos in a way that undermines this very approach. I started by taking logos from fast fashion brands and modifying them to read „Boycott“. From there, I expanded the concept to include corporations I considered worthy of boycotting.
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When deciding what kind of clothing to use for this anti-merchandise series, the first iteration was made using second-hand clothes from the giveaway corner at our art academy. For the second iteration, I took the idea a step further: I shoplifted the garments from the very stores whose logos I had altered and printed onto them. In this version, I also left small installations in the fitting rooms—featuring discarded security tags, statements drawn from the fashion industry’s profit-driven “philosophy,” and images depicting the conditions under which these clothes were produced.
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Reversing certain practices and directing them back at the entities that usually enforce them is a recurring method in this body of work. In Reverse Buff, I approached this idea in two ways: first, by creating graffiti that deliberately mimicked the look of removed graffiti; second, by applying graffiti removal techniques to objects typically protected by them—such as the commercial signage of a supermarket.
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This series was an initial experiment in dealing with obsolete monuments. I imagined accelerating their decay—letting time and nature do what should have already happened. As part of this work, I visited Frankfurt’s Main Cemetery, where there is a designated area for victims of World War II. I collected seeds from plants growing around the graves or from trees whose seeds had fallen onto them. Then, I traveled over 300 kilometers to a small town where a monument still stands in literal honor of the Nazi military. I mixed the seeds with soil and filled the cracks and crevices of the monument with this seed-infused earth. I carried out similar interventions on multiple monuments. When I returned to one of them months later, small plants had begun sprouting from its cracks. Editing note: Today I think a large hammer is just the better option.
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The extremist right german political party AfD once went with the slogan "Not a cent for politically motivated art". In response to this I stole their posters during campaign and sold them on ebay with scenes of destroyed germany after world war II painted over. This was my way of saying that we - as artists - will find a way. Due to procrastination and other problems only two of these actually exist (In private collection). So - sorry if you read this and I still owe you and artwork.
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The starting point for this series was to photograph workplaces from typical 9 to 5 jobs from the first person perspective of the employee. This in itself was not so much a finished work but more like a piece of raw material I wanted to work with and build upon. What I then did in the book dummy and my di0ploma exhibition was to contrast these photographs with portrait of children from my kindergarden group which I repeatedly altered through an AI aging filter until they looked completely alienated.
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These are cut out portraits of my kindergarden group (from the time I went to kindergarden) repeadedly put through an AI aging filter.
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Photo Series of Damaged Fences. Later the damaged parts were traced into seperate drawings to put a visual emphasis on these parts.
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A stack of pizza boxes, equivalent in value to a professor‘s salary: hollow inside – displaying images of insects that perished in candles and tealights after a party. Kindergarten group photos, distorted beyond recognition through repetitive aging filters applied by AI, contrasted with medium-format photographs of workspaces from a first-person perspective. A treadmill running at full speed, showing an animation created with stencil graffiti and flashlight. These and similar works formed the stations of this spatial installation, which represented a cross section through this first draft of the work, which I showed in february 2024 as my diploma / graduate show.
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Sometimes poking a little fun at something can have an impact. This one is about throwing a little jab towards pseudo-intellectual tendencies within the art world.
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Image Gallery: Excerpts as Images. 

Work Description: This work is build upon my observation that for an artwork to be truly activist-political, the act of making it must itself be an activist or political act. Also, with all of us observing the declining state of political situations all around the globe, while we simultaneously feel hope- and powerless, lacking tools of peaceful, yet influential civil unrest, this led me to start working on a larger body of work, in which many pieces connect to this thought and this growing need. It is an artistic observation of society and political themes; as well as an exploration of artistic tools for resistance, protest, and taking a stance on these issues. In February 2024, I presented an early cross-section of these sketches as my diploma project. At this stage, the work is still wildly chaotic—like anything in the process of taking shape. When completed, likely sometime in the 2030s :-)-: I imagine it will take form as an extensive artist’s book, a series of exhibitions, and a collection of public space interventions.

For even more in-depth information about this work, please refer to the digital or printed portfolio.