Renate Bertlmann’s 'Hokus Focus Fidibus' (1989) is a set of four vintage colour photographs presented in artist’s frames decorated in her signature palette of pink, yellow, and blue (representing irony, utopia, and pornography).

In this series of self-portraits, Bertlmann poses before the camera: sunglasses, colourful hair decorations, earrings and plastic necklaces adorn her figure while Bertlmann’s mouth is allusively stuffed with Lego blocks. Bertlmann began her career with a series of self-portraits made using a self-timer, and here she returns to using staged performative photography in a pop, kitsch and humorous fashion.