Merzmensch - Look instead of looking away

From the series: NeoreAIlism
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 – Look instead of looking away

A boy leans his head against an oversized eye. He's not looking into it—he's listening. As if he were listening to what the eye has seen. What it might still see.

Looking instead of looking away is a visual paradox. It depicts seeing – and simultaneously hearing. It shows a child – but without childlike innocence. Instead: skepticism, seriousness, vigilance. An image that questions without explaining.

Here, Merzmensch draws on a central motif of his Neorealism series: artificially "authentic" street life. The setting seems familiar: a fairground, a city, passersby in the background. But the main motif breaks through all the documentary elements. The giant eye—as if taken from a fairground attraction—is too larger than life, too surreal, too awake.

And the title is more than a statement. It's a call, a stance, a reminder: to look instead of looking away. A reminder that images are meant to be not just observed, but questioned.

This work addresses not only seeing, but also the responsibility that comes with looking. It is one of those images that isn't loud—but resonates long afterward.