Peter Fischli David Weiss
Walls, Corners, Tubes
October 10–November 10, 2012
London
Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present new works by Peter Fischli and David Weiss in London. The solo exhibition consists of sculptures created between 2010 and 2012 and are connected to the group of works in unfired clay which the artists displayed at the 54th Venice Biennial in 2011.
In the current exhibition, Fischli and Weiss continue their ongoing observations of the unspectacular, everyday world with objects of unfired clay and black rubber. Their oeuvre consists of sculptures, photographs, films and videos, materials they have been working with since the early 1980s. For example, in the Rubber Sculptures (since 1986), the artists create true-to-life, rubber casts of natural objects and typical items of everyday use, while in the series Plötzlich diese Übersicht (‘Suddenly This Overview,’ 1981) they imaginatively re-enact a revised history of humanity through several hundred sculptures of unfired clay.
In Walls, Corners, Tubes, the artists present a series of objects with geometrical bodies which have the form of walls, corners, and tubes and are made alternately of black rubber and unfired clay. Both the shapes of the objects and their titles such as Wand aus Ton (‘Wall of Clay,’ 2012) or Röhre aus Gummi (‘Tube of Rubber,’ 2012) recall functional elements, such as those often found at building supplies stores. Placed on high, white pedestals, the sculptures appear in various scales which distance them from their origin in the observed forms of reality. On the one hand, their dimensions are oriented towards the human body, so that they automatically relate to it like tools or items for everyday use. On the other hand, they become sculptures which, on a reduced scale, demonstrate an affinity to the objecthood of the Minimal Art of the 1960s.