The shape and the title of the textile collage Prime Power were inspired by the Prime Tower, a skyscraper with a green-tinted glass façade located in Zurich’s gentrified Kreis 5 district. To fill the business center with characters, I depicted figures and other creatures in office clothes, drawing on iconic images from pop culture and art history. References include the works of Damien Hirst, Robert Mapplethorpe, Matthew Barney, and Henri Matisse, as well as films such as “Monty Python’s The Ministry of Silly Walks”, the James Bond franchise, and “Secretary” (2002) starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. The work also mentions New Age practices such as meditation, yoga and shibari.
Prime Power explores themes of toxic masculinity, power dynamics, freedom, individualism, and conformity, blending these ideas into a playful yet critical commentary on contemporary culture.

Primes Power, 2022, textile collage, 126 x 250 cm

What could be a more accurate expression of freedom than dancing naked in a circle? Perhaps only dancing in Armani suits after closing a multi-billion dollar deal.

How can one escape the boring office life? Popular culture can give a few ideas. In The Matrix (1999), Neo follows a mysterious voice on the telephone and races through the office labyrinth in search of freedom. In American Psycho (2000), the pursuit of status, wealth, and power spirals into madness. In Severance (2022–), the characters repeatedly try to break free from a system that divides their professional and personal identities. Well, it’s not easy!

Yet there is another possibility: slipping into a kinky dimension. In Secretary (2002), the protagonist discovers an unexpected sense of liberation through submission. At the beginning of the film, which also serves as its ending, we see an empowered woman moving elegantly through an office while restrained by chains and a metal bar that limits the movement of her arms. She performs ordinary administrative tasks with apparent ease and satisfaction. What appears to be a paradox becomes the film’s central idea: freedom is found not through rebellion against constraints, but through the conscious choice where and when to surrender.

Powerful, relentless, and always on the move, the office shark will do whatever it takes to remain at the top of the corporate food chain. It ambushes anyone it perceives as weak or a threat to its status or authority. The shark may appear as an overly competitive colleague, a hostile teammate, or a frustrated manager defending their territory. So, probably, it’s not a coincidence that the turquoise liquid surrounding the shark in Damien Hirst’s iconic formaldehyde installation perfectly matches the colour of the glass façade of Prime Tower.

Sometimes the freedom lies in the submission. Paradoxical release through the adoption of new bonds, through consent, to follow the rules of the game, so as to imperceptibly dodge the laws of expediency.⁠

I first saw Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Man in a Polyester Suit” in a magazine when I was fourteen or fifteen. It may even have been the first photo of a naked man I ever encountered. As I recall, I was struck by the composition, as well as the paradoxical situation of the man being both naked and clothed.

Looking at this photograph today, I’m fascinated by the complex and contradictory power dynamics it represents. A fully clothed man exposing himself in public can be interpreted as a gesture of dominance, a declaration that social rules don’t apply to him. The angle from where the photo was taken reinforces this imbalance. Either the photographer had to kneel to take the picture, or the model was positioned on a pedestal. The suit signifies status and authority, yet the title’s reference to polyester subtly undermines that image, suggesting aspiration rather than genuine wealth.

After a short research of this work, I learned that Mapplethorpe’s relationship with his model and romantic partner, Milton Moore, was far from equal, adding another layer of complexity to the image and its representational politics.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s photographs explore the dynamics of the gaze differently. By intentionally incorporating mirrors, cameras, backdrops, and other studio equipment into the frame, Sepuya restores agency and subjectivity to the subjects he photographs. Rather than concealing the mechanisms of image-making, he reveals them, transforming the studio into a space of negotiation rather than domination.

Business relationships as intimate and intense intertwining of power, money, desire, expectation, trust, and fear. Beneath the language of professionalism and rational exchange lies a fragile emotional choreography in which attraction and control constantly shift. Partnership becomes a form of mutual dependence, balancing between cooperation and manipulation, vulnerability and domination.

René Magritte said about the work The Son of Man, “Everything we see hides another thing; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” Every day, while passing by the Prime Tower business centre, I wanted to see what was behind the glass windows. Of course, I could make out some silhouettes and furniture, but the world of “white-collar” workers seemed so close, yet was so far!

For half a century, from the 1950s to the early 2000s, the James Bond franchise fascinated several generations of viewers by presenting an idealised image of toxic masculinity. The main character kills all his enemies, seduces every woman he encounters, avoids lasting emotional relationships, and never dies. Performative masculinity explored in the work of Matthew Barney is more complex and sophisticated. And here they meet. Two male figures, one in black and the other in white, both are making a similar gesture. Bond’s iconic walk and the famous image of him pointing a gun directly at the viewer and Barney’s satyr-like dance and the well-known freeze-frame in which he stands and looks into the viewer, appearing simultaneously ready to shake someone’s hand or engage in combat. In both cases, masculinity is presented as theatrical, seductive, and deeply tied to power and aggression.