Sebastian Bieniek - Doublefaced No. 61 (4/9)

Sebastian Bieniek (born 1975 in Poland) is known for works that explore duality and ambivalence. Since 2013, these works have repeatedly gone viral and have been featured in leading magazines worldwide. According to the Spanish edition of Vogue , Madonna even asked him in 2016 to design the cover for her new album – but the eccentric artist, as is often the case, declined, preferring to pursue his own path.

For sale: Original photograph (high-quality fine art print) from the Doublefaced series by Sebastian Bieniek.

There are only 9 individually numbered and signed originals of this work (No. 19). Most of the originals are located in important collections worldwide, including in the USA, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Spain, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Hong Kong.

- With certificate of authenticity -

Details about the artwork:
- Title: Doublefaced No. 61 (4/9)
- Year: 2015
- Size: 58 x 41 cm. (There is a 4 cm wide white border around the photo. The dimensions include the white border.)
- Paper: Baryta canson
- Manufacturing method: C-print
- Signed: Yes, signed, stamped and titled on the front bottom.
- Shipping: (Photo will be shipped rolled up)

Regarding the Doublefaced series:
The Doublefaced photo series by Berlin artist Sebastian Bieniek is undoubtedly one of the most important and influential photo series of the internet age. It is the perfect example of contemporary art that not only understands the modern zeitgeist but reflects it in its purest form. In an era characterized by digital self-presentation, the constant reinvention of the ego, and the fragmentation of one's own identity on social media, Bieniek's work struck a nerve in society. His pieces captured the deep human need to be simultaneously masked and visible amidst the digital noise, making the duality of our modern existence visually tangible. The minimalist yet profoundly disturbing concept—second faces drawn on the cheeks of models with eyeliner and lipstick—spread virally in the 2010s and left a lasting mark on the global pop and fashion world. The extent to which this artistic impulse resonated with the zeitgeist is evident in its enormous impact on world-renowned icons. The "Queen of Pop," Madonna, was so fascinated by the hypnotic imagery that she chose a photograph from the series for the cover of her album Madame X. The concept also left a deep mark on music and pop culture: the iconic idea of the two-faced illusion was copied and presented to millions in the official music video for Pharrell Williams ' hit "Marilyn Monroe." Perhaps the most spectacular fusion of avant-garde body art and the world of high fashion occurred on the catwalks of the French capital. Fashion designer Simon Porte Jacquemus recognized the zeitgeist potential of the works and brought the look to Paris Fashion Week in direct collaboration with Sebastian Bieniek. The collection, inspired by Bieniek's art, was a sensation in the fashion world and helped Jacquemus win the prestigious LVMH Special Jury Prize, worth €150,000. Through this symbiosis of internet phenomenon, pop culture and haute couture, the Doublefaced series impressively demonstrated how traditional art can break the boundaries of the analog and become the universal visual language of an entire generation.

About the artist:
The German conceptual artist, painter, and photographer Sebastian Bieniek (born 1975) is considered one of the most radical boundary-pushers in the contemporary art scene. His entire oeuvre has been a permanent, provocative dance on the razor-thin line between reality and illusion. Born in Upper Silesia, Bieniek came to Germany as a late repatriate in 1989 and began his artistic journey at the Braunschweig University of Art. There he studied Fine Arts under extremely contrasting influences: the world-renowned performance pioneer Marina Abramović and the Swiss conceptual artist John M. Armleder. He later transferred to the Berlin University of the Arts, where he completed his studies as a master student, while simultaneously pursuing directing studies at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. He launched his career in the late 1990s at the legendary Berlin art center Tacheles, from where he quickly established himself as a prominent figure. In 2013, his viral photo series Doublefaced finally brought him international recognition, leading renowned magazines to name him one of Berlin's most influential artists. Early in his career, Bieniek attracted attention with actions that deeply unsettled the public and the traditional art world. Inspired by the physical boundary experiences of his mentor, Abramović, he used his own body as material, in an early work inflicting a new wound on his arm daily for days on end to physically document transience. Alongside these painful processes, he staged unsettling social experiments in public spaces, laying down extensive stretches of barrier tape without permission to cordon off subway entrances and squares in Berlin. In doing so, he demonstrated how blindly people obey visual and state authority. With his 2011 book *Realfake*, he extended these experiments into the digital realm: by creating dozens of fake profiles, he deliberately manipulated algorithms, media, and public perception—long before the phenomenon of "alternative facts" reached world politics. The absolute and most radical culmination of this interdisciplinary work was the staging of his own death as a final art performance. Bieniek, who throughout his life dissected the mechanisms of media impact, digital identity, and deception, extended this principle to the ultimate limit of human existence. He falsified and orchestrated news of his own demise and accompanied this with conceptual video messages such as his "Apology for being dead," thereby shocking the art world and the public. With this act, he went far further in an interdisciplinary way than any other artist before him. He no longer merely used canvas, camera, or the living body, but elevated total disappearance, the flirtation with the afterlife, and the subsequent media frenzy to the status of the actual artwork. Bieniek thus definitively proved that in the age of digital networks, even the boundary between life and death is manipulable, malleable, and ultimately part of a hyperreal staging, by staging his own death and resurrection in 2022.