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Indepth Arts News:
"PETER FISCHLI AND DAVID WEISS. VISIBLE WORLD"
2000-06-15 until 2000-09-03
Museu d'Art Contemporani
Barcelona
, ,
ES Spain
The work of Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss evokes a revision of our perception of the reality of everyday.
Consequently working in a broad artistic language that contains a touch of both humour and drama, they reveal facets of
the commonplace in an extraordinary way. In our fast and ever-changing world, their orchestrations of real life and real
time events seem like an antidote, a remedy to save what otherwise gets lost in the speed of modern life: attention for
the slow pace of the ordinary. Their narrative depictions unearth and analyse elements of our daily lives in a striking and
unnerving manner.
This exhibition at the MACBA, Visible world, evolves around the first presentation of a new work by Peter Fischli and
David Weiss: an elaboration of the artists' continuous research into the notions of place and documentation in liaison
with the ordinary. The result is a personal account of the idea of the atlas or encyclopaedia as the ultimate collection of
facts on man's life and knowledge. Their version rather reads like an anti-atlas, because their focal points are opposite of
those of the generic atlas. This work questions the value of this kind of collections in a world where speed and change are
key.
For their presentation in Barcelona, Peter Fischli and David Weiss selected a precise configuration of earlier works as a
counterpart of the new work. Among these works is a series of double-exposed photographs, highlighting the slow
processes of development in the lives of flowers, mushrooms and plants. Furthermore, a selection of their hours long real
time videoworks from the series Reisevideos (Travelvideos) will be presented in the exhibition. These videos, shot while
driving and walking in and around their hometown Zurich, make us aware of the particularity of every moment. The
spectator is taken in by an unfulfilled expectation, as the videos are too long to be watched entirely during the opening
hours of the museum. Yet, the onlooker is waiting to see if a special moment will unfold before their eyes, or if they
already missed it. However, there is no such thing as 'missing the moment' in the videos of Peter Fischli and David
Weiss. They make us look at reality like we have never looked at it. By hiding a large amount of this reality in the
length of the videos, the banality of daily culture becomes mysterious, while mystery has faded to banality.
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