Christoph Büchel was born in 1966 in Basel, Switzerland, where he continues to live and work. His practice includes politically charged videos, installations and conceptual interventions, such as auctioning off his participation in Manifesta 4. Büchel is probably best known for his lifelike immersive environments, which erase any trace of the art institutions that house them. If his installations first appear as cluttered haphazard assemblages, they are gradually revealed as meticulous constructions that mirror the injustices imbedded in advanced capitalist societies. Full of secret passageways and hidden clues, Büchel’s works are more than 1:1 scale models. They are calculated narrative arrangements, which expose the anxieties and obsessions of marginal individuals like a mad collector, a group of illegal immigrants or a homeless person. Büchel’s carefully crafted environments show the extreme conditions in which these individuals manage to survive, either exploited or profiteering from social inequity.

Christoph Buchel has presented important solo projects at the 
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel, Basel (2007), the Hauser & Wirth Coppermill, London (2006) and Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2006). His work has recently been shown at part of Memorial to the Iraq War at the ICA, London (2007), Une question de generation at the Musee d’art Contemporain de Lyon (2007), Reprocessing Reality at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006), the 51st Venice Biennial (2005), Dionysiac at The Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005) and the Sharjah International Art Biennial 7 (2005).

Christoph Büchel works with Hauser & Wirth, London and Zurich and Maccarone Inc, New York.