Peter Fischli David Weiss (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series) - Softcover

Söntgen, Beate; Fleck, Robert; Danto, Arthur C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714843237 ISBN 13: 9780714843230

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2005

Synopsis

Peter Fischli and David Weiss are Swiss artists who first began working together in the late 1970s. Their sculpture, video and photographic works all generate a unique atmosphere of concentration and relaxed pleasure. The mood of the work ranges from the humorous - a clay figure group of 1981, for example, entitled Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' - to the banal - a photographic series devoted to Airports - and even the apparently invisible - their Untitled installation simulating, through minutely detailed polyurethane sculptures, an unfinished exhibition site.
While Fischli and Weiss occupy the international art world's most prestigious levels - representing Switzerland at the 1995 Venice Biennale and returning eight years later to win the Leone d'Oro prize for their slideshow Will Happiness Find Me? - they remain an unpredictable force at the very cutting edge of new art. This is the first true monograph on this extraordinary pair, who have exhibited worldwide, and whose solo exhibitions include the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1992), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1988), and Tate Modern, London (2006).
In his Survey, French critic and curator Robert Fleck looks at Fischli and Weiss' ability to resist conventional artistic categories, crossing fluidly between sculpture, installation, photography and the moving image. In the Interview Swiss critic Beate Sontgen discusses with the artists notions of sincerity and illusion, and examines the question of how literally viewers are asked to read their work. Noted art critic and leading authority on Fischli and Weiss Professor Arthur C. Danto examines in the Focus the immensely popular The Way Things Go, offering a new perspective on this well-known film. For Artists' Choice Fischli and Weiss have chosen a text by Robert Walser on the pleasure of walking that mirrors their own meanderings. Artists' Writings include unpublished scripts from early video works and a 1996 interview with the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Fleck is Director of the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. He has been working as an art critic and curator since 1981. From 1991-3 he was the Federal Curator for Austrian contemporary art, and in 1998 he co-curated Manifesta 2. From 2000-3 he was Director of ERBAN Fine Art School in Nantes. His books include Die Muhl-Kommune (2003) and Yves Klein (2004). Beate Soentgen is Professor of Art History at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany. From 2003-4 she was Laurenz-Professor of Contemporary Art at Basel University, Switzerland, and from 1998-2002 Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Braunschweig, Germany. She has published several books and contributed to many catalogues and publications, including Texte zur Kunst and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Arthur C. Danto is Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York, and the art critic for The Nation. His books include Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap between Art and Life (2005), Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post Historical Perspective and Encounters (1992), and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (1992), which won the Book Critics Circle Award.

Review:

On the Contemporary Artists Series "The boldest, best executed, and most far-reaching publishing project devoted to contemporary art. These books will revolutionize the way contemporary art is presented and written about."-Artforum "The combination of intelligent analysis, personal insight, useful facts and plentiful pictures is a superb format invaluable for specialists but also interesting for casual readers, it makes these books a must for the library of anyone who cares about contemporary art."-Time Out "A unique series of informative monographs on individual artists."-The Sunday Times "Gives the reader the impression of a personal encounter with the artists. Apart from the writing which is lucid and illuminating, it is undoubtedly the wealth of lavish illustrations which makes looking at these books a satisfying entertainment."-The Art Book

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0714843237
• ISBN 13: 9780714843230
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160