Tuesday 1 May 2012

David Weiss, 1946 - 2012

Fischli Weiss, In the Carpet Shop (The Sausage Photographs), 1979
David Weiss, half of Fischli/Weiss died on 27 April 2012. Read an obituary by Hans Ulrich Obrist; read 2006 Fischli/Weiss interview with Jörg Heiser in Frieze.
The pair were best known for their 1987 film Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go; watch extract here), but also made their mark with an installation which was one of the opening displays in Tate Modern in 2000. The room appeared to be 'unfinished' in that it was littered with tools and materials - closer inspection revealed the contents to be hyper-real carved and painted polyurethane sculptures.
Fischli/Weiss also made fantastic airport photographs, sausage photographs, clay figures, performed as their alter-egos Rat and bear, and asked searching questions:
Why is everything so far away?
What does my dog think?
Who's going to pay for my beer?
What happened 4.56 billion years ago?
Will happiness find me?
Should I marry my mother?
Am I my car?
Who owns Paris?
Is everything I have forgotten as big as a house?
Why are there bad people?
Is resistance useless?
Why does nothing never happen
(From: Fischli Weiss: Flowers & Questions: A Retrospective, London: Tate Publishing, pp54-60)
Fischli Weiss, Untitled (Tate), 1992-2000
Fischli Weiss, object from Der Lauf der Dinge, 1979
Fischli Weiss, Popular Opposites: Funny and Silly, 1981/2006
Fischli Weiss, Popular Oppsites: Theory and Practice, 1981/2006
Fischli Weiss, Outlaws, 1984
Fischli Weiss, Airport [Berlin - Tegel], 1991

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