Born in Switzerland in 1970, lives and works in New York
I am scared of the Chinese, 2006, digital print

Olaf Breuning, who is known for pushing the boundaries of both humor and artistic practice, draws inspiration from mass media and pop culture. He creates photographs, films, sculptures, and installations that combine contemporary aesthetics with an examination of primal urges – violence, sexuality, and the search for companionship. Breuning quotes images from the glamorous world of Hollywood and from trash culture, as well as from the sphere of “high” art. His bizarre images, whose spirit calls to mind Dada art, form an inventory of alternative realities that evoke multilayered associations, and the resulting works are often simultaneously absurd and hilarious.
Irony is the main tactic employed by Breuning to create a theater of the absurd that subversively critiques Western prejudices, customs, and institutions. In I am scared of the Chinese, Breuning plays with Western perceptions of the Chinese as an overwhelmingly large, powerful, strange and foreign people.