Edited by Emily Wei Rales, Ali Nemerov. Foreword by Emily Wei Rales, Mitchell P. Rales. Text by Boris Groys, Mark Godfrey. Interview by Brian O'Doherty, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Hbk, 8.25 x 11 in. / 256 pgs / 1660 color. | 2/28/2014 | Out of stock $65.00
Published by Walther König, Köln. Text by Cara Manes.
In 1987, Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946–2012) created Snowman, a permanently frozen snowman sculpture installed outside (and preserved by) the Römerbrücke power station in Saarbrücken, Germany. In 2017, Fischli was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to remake the work. His Snowman consisted of three copper spheres contained in a large freezer. As frost accumulated on the spheres, the snowman grew in size, eventually requiring defrosting, his smile redrawn daily to preserve his expression. This artist’s book tells the story of the Snowman from 1987 to today, chronicling its iterations in a photo essay. It also illustrates the transformation of the snowman’s cultural meanings since the 18th century, from “bogeyman” to loveable friend, and shows how the generation of electricity has changed in the last 35 years, from thermal power station to solar energy.
This volume is a reprint of the magnificent and rare artist’s book by the Swiss duo Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946–2012). Bursting with luscious color and consisting of multiple superimposed images, these photographs by Fischli/Weiss (dubbed “the Nichols and May of contemporary art” by The New York Times for their critically admired brand of humor) navigate the fine line between beauty and kitsch. For this series, made between 1997 and 1998, the artists spent countless hours documenting gardens and mushroom patches, thoughtfully crafting intoxicating compositions which took on an element of chance when layered in photographic double exposures. The result is a hallucinogenic portrait of berries, grasses, flowers, weeds and mushrooms in vivid, saturated color, dissolving in and out of focus, beautifully printed on folded, unbound sheets.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Theodora Vischer, et al.
The American artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and Swiss artists Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946–2012) have all sought and found quintessential ways of rendering a moment of fragile balance in art--a temporary state at once precarious and propitious. With Calder’s groundbreaking invention of the mobile in the early 1930s, and Fischli/Weiss’s collaborative creative work from 1979 onwards, these artists each lent the theme of fragile balance an iconic form of a very different kind.
At first glance, both positions could hardly be more different; later, however, they proved to be two sides of the same coin, the result of different perspectives on the same theme at different times. This elaborately designed, richly illustrated catalogue with accompanying essays provides insight into both oeuvres.
This little gem is the fourth edition of the catalogue to Suddenly This Overview, the influential Fischli & Weiss exhibition of unfired clay objects which took place in December and January of 1981 and 82. That exhibition represented the first major collaboration between the artists, who have since become two of the most influential figures on the international scene. In this pocket-sized volume, the small, very hand-made-looking clay sculptures are reproduced in low-tech black-and-white and accompanied by the amusing descriptive captions with which they were originally exhibited. Thus a little man on a bicycle comes with the caption, "Dr. Hoffmann on the first LSD trip," while two figures walking along a sidewalk with guitars are described, "Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing ‘I can't get no satisfaction.’" Classic.
Sonne, Mond und Sterne is an 800-page artist's book consisting of just as many images, inspired by an international selection of magazine advertisements and compiled and organized into loose categories by the influential Swiss artistic collaborators Fischli & Weiss. Designed in collaboration with the rising Zurich design firm NORM, this volume reconfigures Fischli & Weiss' contribution to the Ringier AG Annual Report 2007. It is a revealing--and perhaps unnerving--look at the images and slogans that constitute our glutted contemporary media landscape. The viewer is plunged into a flood of imagery that, when taken out of its original commercial context, unfolds into unlikely open-ended narratives. Based in Zürich, Fischli & Weiss began collaborating in 1979 in a variety of media including photography, video and installation. They are perhaps best known for their playful The Way Things Go (1987), a video documenting the endless machinations of a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that seems to have no practical purpose whatsoever. This volume, edited by Kunsthalle Zürich Director Beatrix Ruf, is a never-before-published work.
The Swiss collaborators Fischli & Weiss have said of this early series of color and black-and-white photographs, "Balance is most beautiful just shortly before it collapses." Indeed their tense arrangements of household miscellany often look on the verge of falling, or are caught in the process. The only texts included with them are associative titles, including Natural Grace, (a spatula on a plate on a wine bottle on an apple on a cup), The Fart (chairs on Coke bottles and aerosol cans), and Invisible Power, (showing one end of a paper construction held aloft by the breeze from a small fan). Many of the constructions appear under several titles, in several styles: Completion, when shot in grainy, starkly lit black-and-white, becomes Honor, Courage, Confidence, and in close-up, Can I , May I, Do Anything? On the page, these often elaborate and expansive objects acquire an incidental quality that makes them both more real and more transient. Ultimately, the only evidence of their existence is these images. While a small selection of these works appeared in the artist's book Quiet Afternoon, most have never before been published in any form.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Interview by Renate Goldman.
Since the late 1970s, the Swiss conceptualists Fischli & Weiss have worked collaboratively to produce surprising, witty and oftentimes devious works in a range of media including sculpture, film, photography and installation. This comprehensive black-and-white index of the artists' work from the 1970s till 2003, with text in German only, contains a complete exhibition history, bibliography and filmography. It is an invaluable resource, and brings together an oeuvre influenced by Pop and Conceptual art, Dada and Surrealism that has always managed to defy categorization even while making a superbly deep impression.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Artwork by Peter Fischli, David Weiss.
An artist's book by the renowned Swiss duo dedicated to the questions that everyone asks themselves once in a while: Can something be unbelievable? Should I get drunk? Could I be Japanese? Is the freedom of birds overrated? Am I a farmer in winter? Does unease grow by itself? Should I crawl into my bed and stop producing things all the time?
Published by Walther König, Köln. Photographs by Peter Fischli, David Weiss.
Seeking the "ideal picture," Fischli & Weiss have taken beautiful photographs of the varied landscapes they have travelled through over the past 15 years, capturing multiple images of cities, towns, and country rounds, cactus, Egyptian pyramids, and Buddhist temples--each from a slightly different angle. Arranged eight to a page in Visible Worlds, each picture is afforded equal importance.
PUBLISHER Walther König, Köln
BOOK FORMAT Paperback, 8.25 x 10.75 in. / 360 pgs / 2800 color / 51 bw
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 2/2/2003 Out of print
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: SPRING 2003
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9781880146255SDNR30 List Price: $55.00 CAD $65.00
Published by Walther Koenig. Text by Peter Fischli.
In his latest solo project, Peter Fischli (born 1952), formerly of artist duo Fischli/Weiss, has created an image-based artist’s book depicting 296 book covers in loose topic sequence, imitating the kind of classification principles found in a bookshop or library—self-help, specialist and reference books. Each of the books included revolves around topics of finance and the economy, management, banking, accounting, maximizing profit, improving performance and other related themes. The title of the book comes from John Elkington’s 1994 “triple bottom line” concept, a theory which shifts the measure of a company’s success from financial to holistic. In this vision of corporate success, a company considers not only their financial bottom line, but also accounts for the human and ecological costs of running a productive business.
Published by Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager. Introduction by Peter Fischli.
Suddenly This Overview gathers the popular series of more than 350 hand-sculpted, unfired clay figures begun in 1981 by the Swiss artists Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012)--a masterpiece executed in an entirely unspectacular material. Fischli and Weiss' little figures are arranged in sculptural tableaus to delineate scenes from history, culture, entertainment, sports and everyday life. The titles of each tableau, with their characteristic subtle mockery and serious irony, are an integral part of the work. Giving a sense of the incredible scale of the project and the variation of the figures, Suddenly This Overview offers a close look at one of Fischli and Weiss' most famous and beloved works.
Published by Forlaget Press. Edited by Line Ulekleiv. Foreword by Jan Andresen, Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Text by Pernille Albrethsen, John Kelsey, Patrick Frey.
In 2013, the Serpentine Gallery in London presents Fischli & Weiss’ first public sculpture in the United Kingdom, “Rock on Top of another Rock,” installed in Hyde Park, near the Gallery. This work was undertaken in tandem with the duo’s monumental rock project in Valdresflya, Norway, which was unveiled in the fall of 2012. The latter project was part of a nationwide effort by the National Tourist Routes in Norway, for which internationally renowned artists and architects have been invited to create works that dialogue with the Norwegian landscape, for each of the 18 roads spanning the country. Published to accompany this dual venture, this catalogue features essays by Patrick Frey, John Kelsey and Pernille Albrethsen as well as historical texts selected by the artists.
Published by Glenstone. Edited by Emily Wei Rales, Ali Nemerov. Foreword by Emily Wei Rales, Mitchell P. Rales. Text by Boris Groys, Mark Godfrey. Interview by Brian O'Doherty, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946–2012) collaborate to transform the stuff of ordinary life into a series of quizzical, whimsical, even disquieting encounters. Fascinated with unconventional subject matter and material, Fischli and Weiss toy with the idea of "high art," questioning popular narratives and movements in art and cultural history. Peter Fischli David Weiss presents an in-depth survey of the artists’ work from 1979 through 2012, drawn exclusively from Glenstone’s collection. The volume includes rubber and clay sculptures, photographic series including Equilibres (A Quiet Afternoon) and Sausage Series, digital slides such as Airports and Flowers and Mushrooms, stills from their acclaimed video The Way Things Go and the most recent iteration of their alter egos, Rat and Bear. Also reproduced is the artists’ most ambitious polyurethane installation, The Objects for Glenstone, and Questions, a slide installation of over 400 handwritten existential queries such as "Is the Devil a cheerful person?" and "Will happiness find me?" which won the Golden Lion Prize at the 2003 Venice Biennale.
PUBLISHER Glenstone
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 8.25 x 11 in. / 256 pgs / 1660 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 2/28/2014 Active
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 108
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9780980108637TRADE List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00
AVAILABILITY Out of stock
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012) are celebrated around the world for their multidisciplinary projects, films, sculptures and books. The two artists began producing their Polyurethane Objects in 1982, and continued until Weiss tragically died in 2012 from cancer. Hand-carved and hand-painted, these sculptural works overturn the notion of the readymade while uncovering wit and poetry in everyday things. Edited and sequenced by Fischli himself, the book features 140 objects, depicting such humble and seemingly inauspicious items as power tools, shipping pallets, stained paintbrushes and buckets. The foldout cover depicts the sculptures as they are exhibited, in arrangements that evoke the distinctive disarray of an artist's studio.
Peter Fischli and David Weiss: Flowers and Mushrooms
Alexander Calder & Fischli / Weiss
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Plötzlich diese Übersicht
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Sonne, Mond und Sterne
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Equilibres
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Ausflüge, Arbeiten, Austellungen
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Will Happiness Find Me?
Peter Fischli: Planet People Profit
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Suddenly This Overview
Fischli & Weiss: Rock on Top of Another Rock
Peter Fischli David Weiss
Peter Fischli & David Weiss: Polyurethane Sculptures