Peter Fischli and David Weiss

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Peter Fischli (born June 8, 1952 in Zurich ) and David Weiss (born June 21, 1946 in Zurich; † April 27, 2012 ibid.), Often Fischli / Weiss for short , were an artist duo that had worked together since 1979. They were among the most renowned contemporary artists in Switzerland . Her best-known work is the film The Course of Things , which in 1987 was a success with the public during documenta 8 and made her internationally known.

For their work they made use of a wide range of artistic forms of expression from film to photography and artist books to sculptures made from a wide variety of materials and multimedia installations. They adapted objects and situations from everyday life, which they brought into an artistic context with humor and irony and thus posed philosophical and theoretical questions about the explanation of the world.

Art critics see parallels to the artists Marcel Duchamp , Dieter Roth or Jean Tinguely in the often parodying attitude of their works .

Fischli / Weiss represented Switzerland several times at the Venice Biennale and other international cultural events. Both lived and worked in Zurich.

Biography and education

Peter Fischli

Peter Fischli studied from 1975 to 1976 at the Academia dei Belle Arti in Urbino and from 1976 to 1977 at the Academia dei Belle Arti in Bologna . Before working with David Weiss, he a. at the Academy in Bologna. Peter Fischli is the son of the architect, painter and sculptor Hans Fischli .

David Weiss

David Weiss completed the preliminary course at the Zurich School of Applied Arts from 1963 to 1964 and then studied sculpture at the Basel School of Applied Arts until 1965 . Before working with Peter Fischli, he exhibited in several European galleries from 1976 to 1979. From 1970 to 1979 he published books in collaboration with Urs Lüthi . In September 2011 Weiss fell ill with cancer. He died on April 27, 2012 in Zurich. The Swiss television broadcast on May 2, 2012, obituary, titled Funnily subtlety . He found his final resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich .

Work (selection)

The first joint work of the two was in 1979 Wurstserie , a series of ten photographs for which they arranged sausages and slices of sausage found in their own refrigerator with rubbish for various everyday situations such as a carpet shop, a traffic accident or a fashion show. In 1980 they made their first film on Super 8 . In The Least Resistance, the two stroll through Hollywood disguised as a bear and a rat, question life and write a book.

“I hate this mess in the world. Nothing works. Everything is hopeless and sad. "

- The bear in : The least resistance

The everyday, sometimes seemingly banal topics and objects that are taken up get their message through the fact that they are related to each other or unexpectedly appear in the context of a museum or an exhibition. In their film Visible World , they set shots of the Swiss Plateau against the subtropical rainforest and the sunset in Venice next to the city of Los Angeles. The Untitled (Flowers) series combines photographs of flowers from all over the world through double exposure in one image. Often he creates series of works that are sometimes continued over the years. These works can stand alone or be seen in relation to one another. A typical example of this is the Airport series , a collection of photographs of situations at airports that were summarized in an illustrated book in 1989, but which has been continued to the present day.

In their photo series, they portrayed everyday scenes, such as those at airports, on vacation or suburban houses. The works were created during numerous trips, but also in the immediate vicinity of her hometown Zurich. The installations and sculptures, such as the room under the stairs in the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, got their ambiguity from the materials used, often polyurethane , so that they can only be distinguished from real objects by their reduced weight.

In later years, multimedia installations and projections were part of her work, like her contribution to the 2003 Biennale . Hundreds of seemingly pointless questions like “Why does nothing never happen? Is a bus coming? Have I never been fully awake? Do opinions come by themselves? Do I have to imagine death like a landscape with a house where you can go in and a bed where you can sleep? Are my juices correct? Does the dog bark all night? Does the world exist without me? Is my stupidity a warm coat? ”Were projected onto the wall in quick succession without giving any answers. For their work they received the Golden Lion for the best work of art at the Biennale.

Her work is represented in numerous museums around the world, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Kunsthaus Zürich , the Kunstmuseum Basel , the Museo Cantonale d 'Arte in Lugano, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main or the art collection of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Movies

  • 1981: “The lowest resistance”, enlarged 8 mm to 16 mm, 30 minutes, color, sound
  • 1983: “The Right Way”, 16 mm, 52 minutes, color, sound
  • 1987: “ The course of things ”, 16 mm, 30 minutes, color, sound, the camera follows a Rube Goldberg machine
  • 1992: "Kanalvideo", video compilation of original recordings by the Zurich sewer monitoring service
  • 1995: “Untitled (Venice Work)”, 96 hours of video material with excursions into the Zurich area and everyday scenes from Zurich
  • 2001: “Büsi (Kitty)”, DVD, 6 ″ 30 ′, recording of a milk-licking cat, in endless projection
  • 2003: “Dogs”, DVD, color, in endless projection

Photo series

  • 1979: "Sausage series", photo production with slices of sausage, sausages and waste
  • 1985: "Silent Afternoon", photo staging with everyday objects
  • 1989: “Surrli”, 3 Cibachromes and 162 color slides, created with the “Surrli” machine
  • 1991: "Pictures, Views", 12 C-prints on aluminum with motifs from all over the world
  • 1993: “Settlements, Agglomeration”, photo series about a Zurich suburb
  • 1998: "Untitled (Flowers)", 111 double-exposed color slides with floral motifs
  • 1998: "Untitled (mushrooms)", 162 double-exposed color slides with mushroom motifs
  • 2002: "Visible World", 3000 colored slides with motifs from all over the world
  • 2004: "An Unsettled Work", 162 color slides with double exposures, transferred to DVD
  • 2005: "Fotografias", black and white photo series with fantasy motifs

Sculptures

  • 1981: "Suddenly this overview", group of works consisting of over 350 sculptures made of unfired clay
  • 1983: "Fever", 10 polyurethane sculptures
  • 1984: “Big Pot”, 1.40 meter high polyurethane pot, inscribed with questions on the inside
  • 1984: "Concrete Landscapes", 3 concrete sculptures
  • 1985: "Metaphysical Sculptures", 6 polyurethane sculptures
  • 1986/87: “Rubber sculptures”, 24 replicas of various objects made of black rubber
  • 1988/89: "Untitled (hostesses)", 9 plaster models of women
  • 1990: "Snowman", ice sculpture in a refrigerated display case
  • 1992/93: "Table", 750 polyurethane replicas of various objects

Installations

  • 1982: “Mad Max”, installation with polyurethane sculptures
  • 1987: "House", replica of a house on a scale of 1: 5, wood, paint, plexiglass
  • 1991: "Garage", installation with polyurethane replicas of various objects
  • 1991: "Untitled", installation of original objects in the kitchen cupboard wall
  • 1991: "How To Work Better", facade label (in Zurich- Oerlikon ) and screen prints on paper
  • 1992: “Untitled”, 50 showcases with consumer goods in the Zurich Stock Exchange
  • 1993: "Room under the stairs", permanent installation in the Museum of Modern Art , Frankfurt am Main
  • 1995: "Untitled", installation with polyurethane replicas of various objects
  • 1996: “Empty Room”, installation with polyurethane replicas of various objects
  • 1996: "Untitled (two identical groups)", installation with 42 polyurethane replicas of various objects
  • 1997: "Garden", flower and vegetable garden with various original objects
  • 1999: "A path through the moor", about 1.2 km long wooden plank path
  • 2000: “Untitled”, installation with polyurethane replicas of various objects
  • 2003: "Questions projection", projection of 1200 small-format slides with handwritten questions, Venice Biennale

Publications / art books

literature

  • Museum Ludwig (ed.): AC: Peter Fischli, David Weiss. Questions, projection. Walther König, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-88375-639-3 .
  • Bice Curiger (eds.): Peter Fischli, David Weiss , London 2006, ISBN 1-85437-647-0 (English).
  • Robert Fleck, Beate Söntgen, Arthur C. Danto: Peter Fischli and David Weiss , Phaidon, New York / London 2005, ISBN 0-7148-4323-7 (English).
  • Kunstverein München (ed.): The secret of work, texts on the work of Peter Fischli & David Weiss , Munich / Düsseldorf 1990.
  • Fundação de Serralves: Peter Fischli, David Weiss: mundo visível , catalog for the exhibition, Porto 2001 (Portuguese).

Awards

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Jost: Fischli, Hans. In: Sikart
  2. ↑ David Weiss from Fischli / Weiss is dead. Basler Zeitung , accessed on April 28, 2012 .
  3. ↑ On the death of the artist David Weiss: Ein Schweizer zum Schmunzeln , Spiegel Online , April 28, 2012
  4. ↑ Funny subtlety. ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Video in: Kulturplatz , Swiss television from May 2, 2012 (13 minutes)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.srf.ch
  5. ↑ Fischli & Weiss - The Lowest Resistance, in: Youtube, Kanal von Jan de Boef, upload of October 30, 2012
  6. ↑ Media Art Network: The Course of Things. In: artfilm.ch - The course of things .
  7. ↑ ZKM: fast forward - Media Art | Sammlung Goetz Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zkm.de
  8. ↑ Announcement on the exhibition ( Memento of the original dated August 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 30, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.buendner-kunstmuseum.ch