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CULTURE DEBATE. Some time ago, I was told by detours that Sweden’s most famous porn photographer Bingo Rimér apparently he intended to use my image and my name in a commercial context. I emailed him and explained that I did not want to be exploited in this way and that it was an unauthorized infringement of my copyright.
In response, I received two emails from Bingo in which they apologized for what they had done and also said they would immediately close their project as soon as they understood that I did not want to participate.
The easiest thing would have been to ask the question first. And as often before, when it comes to Bingo, what he said was not true. Instead, he came out to the media a couple of days ago and gave his version of what happened. An unusually stingy and grumpy old bastard not only enraged his art and prevented him from making a donation to the Musikhjälpen fundraiser, but also damaged charity in general.
BINGO RIMÉR
Björn “Bingo” Rimér was born in 1975 in Hällaryd, Blekinge.
Rimér had early success as a photographer for men’s magazines like Slitz and Café, and previously was also an agent for Playboy magazine in Sweden.
Since 2003, he has been editor-in-chief or editor-in-chief on various rounds of the men’s magazine Moore Magazine.
As a celebrated photographer and media profile, Rimér has also run a clothing company.
In 2010, he published the book “A Girl Photographer’s Confessions”, which last fall was also the basis for a new documentary on Dplay.
Today, Bingo Rimér presents himself on his Instagram with almost 200,000 followers as “photographer, artist, influencer, Iron man and father” and lives according to the documentary “a completely different life” than before.
The truth is different and much simpler, namely that I am actively disinterested in being at least connected with Bingo Rimér depending on his vision of the man and the activities he has carried out throughout his adult life. Bingo Rimér is probably our most successful porn photographer, both in this country and internationally. Specifically, her work has focused on transforming the female half of humanity into profitable assets in the service of trafficking in women.
Bingo, of course, is nothing like the traditional image of an ordinary pimp. Bingo is blond and blond, he smiles with white teeth at the camera and is dressed in the white clothes of innocence. He is nothing like that terrifying black man we meet in American movies and television series. The one who wears a wide-brimmed hat, a coarse gold chain around his neck, and wolfskin on his ankle. The one who is dedicated to crushing his slaves as soon as they arouse their disgust for not fucking together enough money for him. The problem with the latter is that, regardless of its appearance, it appears in too many specimens in the reality that prevails on our earth.
Musikhjälpen on Swedish radio.
Photo: Mattias Ahlm / Swedish Radio
But of course … none of them look in the least like Bingo Rimér either on the outside or in concrete action. Looking and behaving that way would be contrary to your mission. Bingo works in the women’s marketing department and her job is to describe the reality of it in the most conciliatory way possible. That is why he also chooses to call himself a “photographer” and, in general, it is also the simple explanation that in no way do I want to have anything to do with someone like him.
It’s not about the women around me, my wife, my four daughters, my daughter-in-law, seven of my granddaughters who are girls. It’s not even about me and how I want to be seen. It is about Rimér’s vision of the Bingo man and what he has always earned for a living. And that shouldn’t be that difficult to understand, right?
That said, three questions remain. The artistic content of Bingo Rimér, the truth about their philanthropic endeavors and examining myself in the role of a stingy, grumpy old bastard.
What drives this art seems to be an economic structure that has little to do with charity.
For a few years now, Bingo Rimér has donated a painting to Musikhjälpen depicting famous people and the person who most recently would have been the subject of this was me. In my case, it was a six-foot-long enlargement of a Swedish thousand dollar bill with a photo of me and things that can be associated with me. A hunting dog, a deer, a glass of wine … and he has not taken any of these photographs himself. It’s a normal cut and paste collage and probably most of it had its copyright stolen from me when it was created. None Rembrandt it certainly is not.
What drives this art seems to be an economic structure that has little to do with charity. Instead, the truth is that Bingo Rimér uses Musikhjälpen for advertising purposes and to enrich itself. He makes an “original” where Musikhjälpen receives 50 percent of the sale price of the painting and keeps the same amount himself.
With the help of that effort, he then sells as many copies as possible where the money goes directly into his own pocket. He does it online and through personal contacts and according to what he himself has told all those who have known how to listen, it has been an extremely profitable operation. After all, after he went out to the press and lamented, some of them found out about me and promised to testify at a possible trial.
The only thing that interests me is how much he stole with the help of my copyright.
What else is left, I will not enter. It may be a question for investigative journalists, the police and the tax authority and the only thing that interests me is how much he stole with the help of my copyright. The amount that will constitute the basis of the claim for damages that I will later make against him.
The question remains then of the stingy and grumpy Leif GW Persson. I am an old man, well aware that the coat has no pockets. By virtue of my relative prosperity, I have been busy for several years donating my earthly assets to various charitable causes, and in recent years it has been about seven figures.
What is closest to my heart is helping children and women who are struggling and the biggest individual beneficiary is now a Christian orphanage in Ukraine, Children’s Hope. If this ends with Bingo Rimér’s judgment to pay me damages, it will be delivered to them without recording. It is in the nature of things considering what Bingo is doing and I have always done it with the damages I received due to the theft of my copyright.
No, Bingo Rimér and I are not very alike and the old saying that “the gift is the joy of the giver” seems that we have interpreted it in completely different ways.
Leif GW Persson is an author, criminologist, and longtime Expressen employee.
NOTE. Bingo Rims attorney Mark Safaryan has formerly Expressen rejected the accusations of Leif GW Persson. Rimér does not consider the painting to be a trademark infringement, but does consider it a work of art.
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