Dieter Meier

For his extended series As Times Goes By (1974/2005) – Thirteen biographies impersonated by Dieter Meier, the famous performance artist impersonated 13 fictional characters. For each one, he invented a biography accompanied by two self-portraits made 30 years apart. The spectator then discovers the picaresque adventures of a boxer from the Bronx turned respected coach, a globetrotting cocaine dealer mysteriously gone missing or a former guitarist who reinvented himself as a salesman. These personae are reminiscent of the 1001 lives of Dieter Meier, himself a musician, singer in the band Yello, actor, golf player, restaurateur and successful entrepreneur.

Dieter Meier and Boris Blank (Switzerland, 1952) make up Yello, considered one of the pioneering bands in electronic music. Their clips were a hit in the 1980s, a time when artistic avant-garde and commercial success went hand in hand. Directed by Dieter Meier, their short experimental films brought the duo to fame via the rising MTV broadcasting channel. In the basement of a former department store, the Videology retrospective demonstrated their pioneering role in defining video as a medium, both in musical and visual terms.