Merzmensch - Invention of Shaving Foam

From the series: HalluciNation
Paper: Hahnemühle Fine Art Archival Print
Sheet size: 40 × 40 cm with 1 cm white border around the motif.
Year: Edition of 2025
Edition: 3 + 1 AP
Signed, dated and edition numbered by the artist on a separate label.

Merzmensch – The invention of shaving foam

Welcome to the laboratory of the absurd, where history is rewritten with foam.

In The Invention of Shaving Cream, Merzmensch presents us with a pseudo-historical myth-maker: a stern man in a sterile gown, molding something that looks like the primordial substance of modern masculinity—shaving cream. Around him hang portraits of himself, hanging on the walls like saints in a chapel of hygiene. They all share the same mustache and the same icy gaze. Time folds in on itself, and identity becomes a recursive artifact.

The space is clinical yet chaotic—smeared walls, overflowing bowls, textures that shatter the illusion of sterility. The foam, ostensibly the subject of invention, takes on a symbolic meaning: part ritual, part madness, part self-portrait in progress.

This isn't just satire—it's a multi-layered visual hallucination, a false memory implanted in the viewer. The work is part of Merzmensch's "HalluciNation" series, which gleefully dismantles the logic of visual truth and replaces it with artificial certainty.