Conspicuous by Absence

In his oeuvre Michael Schirner treats the visual worlds of mass culture and high culture as well as the perception of images communicated via media.
He does not create new images. His images are images about images. Magazines, newspapers, films, television, the internet, advertising, and art are his image archives. Schirner works and reworks that which is stored in our collective memory.
His book Bye Bye shows his latest series, 32 coarse halftone reproductions of images that appear vexingly familiar to us, even though we have never seen them in this form. We spoke with the visionary and former "pope of advertising" in his studio in Berlin about the advertising of art, the art of advertising and his ability to be apparently invisible.