Lot 3473 - A211 PostWar & Contemporary - Thursday, 28. November 2024, 04.00 PM
PETER FISCHLI & DAVID WEISS
(Zurich 1952–lives and works in Zurich) (1946 Zurich 2012)
Untitled. 2001.
Polyurethane, painted.
Signed and dated on the underside of the cube and the bowl: Fischli David Weiss 2001.
Cube 80 × 50 × 44 cm.
Bowl 8.5 × 19 × 19 cm.
Bowl 8.5 × 19 × 19 cm.
Certificate:
Provenance:
- Private collection, Switzerland, acquired directly from the artists in 2001.
"There is always a certain poetry in the contemplation of the banal. But it requires a lot of patience." Fischli/Weiss
A white-glazed clay bowl, with black and yellow streaks, unevenly modelled by hand, is presented to the viewer on a white exhibition plinth like a valuable found object. The streaks look random, like unintentional, haphazard smudges, giving them an appearance of inferiority and imperfection.
In this work from 2001, in their usual humorous and multidimensional way, the artist duo Fischli/Weiss play on the difference between everyday objects and art, between archaeological finds laden with cultural history and simple utility ceramics, between the sublime and the banal. The work challenges the viewer to reflect on when an object acquires the status of a work of art and what factors lead to the attribution of meaning. In the tradition of Duchamp's ready-mades, the object only becomes a work of art through its context and the circumstances of its presentation. What does this say about the value of the object? What about the mechanisms of the art world, about the viewer, or the artists themselves?
This ironic and simultaneously self-reflective attitude runs like a leitmotif through the oeuvre of the two Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, who have worked together as a duo since 1979 in a variety of media including sculpture, object, installation, film, photography and video, and are now among the most important contemporary artists in Switzerland.
Unlike Marcel Duchamp, however, Fischli/Weiss go one step further: the sculpture presented here is not a "Readymade" - an everyday object found in their studio and elevated to the status of a work of art by recontextualisation. Rather, it is a carefully hand-carved polyurethane sculpture, made as a deceptively realistic copy of the everyday object, but, due to the material properties, it is not functional. The artist duo is ostensibly concerned with deception and perception, reality and imitation, appearance and existence, but the work would not pass a real-life test and, if used, would be easily recognisable as a replica. "Duchamp's "Readymades" have the potential to migrate back into the real world (you could use the shovel to dig snow), but Fischli and Weiss's objects would crumble or break if they were put back into use."1 However, this is not relevant in the museum context. Objects may not be touched, handled or picked up. In this way, Fischli/Weiss once again undermine the much-discussed juxtaposition of sublime art and banal everyday objects, because this is not an everyday object: it has always been a fabricated work of art. By suspending the utilitarian character, these artists, tongue-in-cheek, open up a space for contemplation and for special attention to the object, thus changing the way people can perceive and appreciate the objects around them.
1 Boris Gory in Spector, Nancy and Trotman, Nat: Peter Fischli Davis Weiss How to work better, New York 2016, S.205.
A white-glazed clay bowl, with black and yellow streaks, unevenly modelled by hand, is presented to the viewer on a white exhibition plinth like a valuable found object. The streaks look random, like unintentional, haphazard smudges, giving them an appearance of inferiority and imperfection.
In this work from 2001, in their usual humorous and multidimensional way, the artist duo Fischli/Weiss play on the difference between everyday objects and art, between archaeological finds laden with cultural history and simple utility ceramics, between the sublime and the banal. The work challenges the viewer to reflect on when an object acquires the status of a work of art and what factors lead to the attribution of meaning. In the tradition of Duchamp's ready-mades, the object only becomes a work of art through its context and the circumstances of its presentation. What does this say about the value of the object? What about the mechanisms of the art world, about the viewer, or the artists themselves?
This ironic and simultaneously self-reflective attitude runs like a leitmotif through the oeuvre of the two Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, who have worked together as a duo since 1979 in a variety of media including sculpture, object, installation, film, photography and video, and are now among the most important contemporary artists in Switzerland.
Unlike Marcel Duchamp, however, Fischli/Weiss go one step further: the sculpture presented here is not a "Readymade" - an everyday object found in their studio and elevated to the status of a work of art by recontextualisation. Rather, it is a carefully hand-carved polyurethane sculpture, made as a deceptively realistic copy of the everyday object, but, due to the material properties, it is not functional. The artist duo is ostensibly concerned with deception and perception, reality and imitation, appearance and existence, but the work would not pass a real-life test and, if used, would be easily recognisable as a replica. "Duchamp's "Readymades" have the potential to migrate back into the real world (you could use the shovel to dig snow), but Fischli and Weiss's objects would crumble or break if they were put back into use."1 However, this is not relevant in the museum context. Objects may not be touched, handled or picked up. In this way, Fischli/Weiss once again undermine the much-discussed juxtaposition of sublime art and banal everyday objects, because this is not an everyday object: it has always been a fabricated work of art. By suspending the utilitarian character, these artists, tongue-in-cheek, open up a space for contemplation and for special attention to the object, thus changing the way people can perceive and appreciate the objects around them.
1 Boris Gory in Spector, Nancy and Trotman, Nat: Peter Fischli Davis Weiss How to work better, New York 2016, S.205.
CHF 70 000 / 100 000 | (€ 72 160 / 103 090)