Christoph Büchel


Christoph Büchel is a Swiss artist known for provocative contemporary installations. He received international attention for constructing a mosque in a Venice church and suggesting that prototypes for Donald Trump's wall should be considered land art.

Early life and education

Christoph Büchel was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1966.

Selected works

For the 2015 Venice Biennale, Christoph Büchel contributed Iceland's national pavilion which consisted of a conceptual work of art which transformed the 10th-century old Church of the Abbey of Misericordia into a generic mosque. Labeled The Mosque: The First Mosque in the Historic City of Venice, it was partly inspired by disputes in Iceland over building the first purpose-built Reykjavík Mosque. After a complaint presentet by a member of the neo-fascist party New Force, the Venetian authorities closed the installation, citing permit violations.
Büchel encouraged artistic recognition of eight prototypes of the border wall erected near the US-Mexico border. Büchel mobilized support through an online petition.
For the 2019 Venice Biennale, Büchel displayed Barca Nostra, a shipwreck that had sunk with hundreds of migrants aboard.