| Christoph Büchel |
  (Mein Kampf), 2006In his works, the Swiss artist Christoph Büchel often makes use of artefacts from the mass media, like military propaganda videos, political pamphlets or original knotted carpets, which show motifs of, for example, the attack on the World Trade Centre. Büchel's 2006 work (My Struggle) consists of 1000 copies of the Arabic edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf [My Struggle], which are arranged in an improvised sales-setting on simple Europallets and in the original U.S. Marlboro shipping cartons used by the Arab publisher. The book has been a bestseller in Arab countries and points to the relations of the National Socialists to the Arab world reaching back into the 1930's. A key figure in this connection is Haj Amin Al Husseini (1893–1974), a driving force of Palestinian nationalism and an honorary member of the SS. As the founder of the Bosnian-Muslim SS Division Handzar, he was centrally involved in the genocide against Serbian and Jewish populations. His nephew and political protegé Yasser Arafat actually set the name Al-Hussein aside, yet demonstrably paid his uncle great political respect all his life. (Mein Kampf), was originally planned in 2006 as a provisional memorial for the Residenzplatz in Salzburg, on the very site of the first burning of books in Austria, as organised by the Nazis in 1938, and was censored/rejected in the context of the international controversy around the (Mohammed) caricatures in 2006 and of the Salzburg Festival.  Tomorrow's Pioneers (Farfour), 2007 Tomorrow's Pioneers is an interactive TV-series for children broadcast weekly by the official television station of the Hamas, Al-Aqsa TV. Christoph Büchel uses this medial ready-made to comment ironically on the religious polit-propaganda by the media. Its main protagonist is Farfour, a mouse-twin of the Western Mickey Mouse. As a member of the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, this character's lively and entertaining manner indoctrinates its very young audience with hatred directed towards Israel and the American imperialism. Büchel’s medial ready-mades are often not directly recognisable as pledges of reality – their laconic presence is simply too much of a surprise in the cultural context of this locality (and still more in the context of the exhibition), where they deploy their eccentrically provocative, disturbing impact. Christoph Büchel, * 1966 in Basel (CH), lives and works in Switzerland  Christoph Büchel, (Mein Kampf), 20061.000 copies of Mein Kampf (arabic translation), tarp, cashier box, chair, palettes, boxes courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London photo: Ch. Büchel Christoph Büchel, Tomorrow's Pioneers (Farfour), 2007 video (colour, sound) 10:59 min., loop courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
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