Peter Fischli / David Weiss | Equilibres

 

Peter Fischli / David Weiss

Equilibres

Cologne, Germany: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2006

168 pp, 20.3 x 24.1 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

The eighty-two colour and black & white photographs that make up the Equilibres series were created between 1984 and 1986, immediately preceding their celebrated film The Way Things Go. Following the subheading dictum “Balance is most beautiful just before it collapses”, the works present household objects and studio detritus arranged to form tenuously-balanced assemblages.  

Peter Fischli & David Weiss | Record

Peter Fischli & David Weiss 

Record

Zurich, Switzerland: Parkett Publishers, 1988

30 cm. diameter

Edition of 120 [+ 26 AP] signed and numbered copies

"The record made by Peter Fischli and David Weiss for the deluxe edition of Parkett no. 17 was not produced in a sound studio. Instead it is an object entitled Record but an object that can be played. Those who are not afraid of ruining their record player or rather the needle will hear something like a cross section of average disco music. Average in this case also means decreased quality of sound reproduction - the hi-fi fetish choking on itself.   

Records rank among the most popular and common objects in ordinary use. They are stock items in every household along with potted plants, furniture, frying pans, cars, magazins and jam. Yet rarely have we ever come across a homemade, home- pressed species of record. Only Fischli/Weiss associate this likable mass-produced article with a homemade dress, a self-made bookcase, or a self-constructed house. They draw our attention to the state of suspension between the ridiculous and the sublime inherent in such objects. This record is an imitation.   

One is reminded of the ancient legend in which a bird tries to eat a painted cherry because the imitation of nature in the picture is so flawless. Fischli/Weiss offer us an object in which the cherry has been turned into a record and the bird’s beak, into a needle. The same issue was involved in one of the small sculptures in the series “Suddenly This Overview” in which Fischli/Weiss molded the trademark of “His Master’s Voice.” Not only do we ask ourselves whether the dog is listening to his master’s real or fake, right or wrong voice but also whether the duplicated trademark can still claim to be a trademark. The Fischli/Weiss record is made of Beracryl (acrylic) and is similar to the material used by the artists for their socalled “rubber” sculptures. Thus “rubber” can sometimes imitate rubber but in the present case, acrylic is “imitating” vinyl."

- publisher's blurb 

Peter Fischli & David Weiss | Haus

Peter Fischli & David Weiss

Haus (Special Edition)

Zurich, Switzerland: Luma Foundation, 2019

276 pp., 20.5 x 20.5 cm., hardcover

Edition of 36 [+6 AP] signed and numbered copies

Haus began as a work by Fischli & Weiss for the Munster Sculpture Project in 1987. Their 1:15 scale representation of a four-storey commercial building was presented in an unpretentious area - far from tourist attractions -  near a railway station, in between a cinema and sausage stand. 

The work was subsequently shown in exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, New York and Museo Jumex, Mexico City. 

This publication was produced on the occasion of the donation of the work to the city of Zurich, by the Luma Foundation. An aluminum version was permanently installed in the city, in front of the cycle-racing track Offenen Rennbahn in Zurich-Oerlikon. 

In addition to this deluxe signed and numbered edition, housed with a folder in a folded box, a trade edition is also available. 

Peter Fischli & David Weiss | Making Things Go / The Way Things Go / Sketch

Peter Fischli & David Weiss
Making Things Go / The Way Things Go / Sketch
Zurich, Switzerland: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, 2007
3 DVDs (71:27 / 1:52 / 29:57)
Edition of 150 signed and numbered copies

The Swiss duo's masterwork The Way Things Go, a making of film and the short film Sketch, housed in an embossed cardboard box.

Fischli & Weiss: Rock on Top of Another Rock

[Line Ulekleiv, ed]
Fischli & Weiss: Rock on Top of Another Rock
Oslo, Copenhagen: Forlaget Press, 2014
176 pp., 22.5 x 16.5 cm., hardcover
Edition size unknown

Released late February, this exhibition catalogue accompanied a year long presentation that ended in March of this year. The book is edited by Line Ulekleiv and features a foreword by Jan Andresen, Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist, with other texts by Pernille Albrethsen, John Kelsey, and Patrick Frey. It documents Rock on Top of Another Rock, the first public sculpture by Fischli & Weiss to be presented in the UK. The monumental work, installed in Hyde Park, near the Serpentine Gallery, the work was undertaken in tandem with the pairs’s rock project in Valdresflya, Norway.

Fischli & Weiss | Small Bucket

Peter Fischli & David Weiss
Untitled (Small Bucket) 
Zurich, Switzerland: Parkett, 1994
195 x 80 mm. (diameter)
Edition of 32 (+10 AP)

Produced for Parkett Magazines's 40/41st issue, these carved object are uniquely painted with acrylics and polyurethane to resemble buckets used in the artists studio. They are signed in black felt-tip pen, with the ten artist proof copies numbered in Roman numerals.

With an auction house estimated value of between five and eight thousand dollars.

Station To Station

Doug Aitken's multi-media event Station to Station just added a slew of new artists and musicians, including Beck, Cat Power, No Age, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Allora & Calzadilla,  Sam Durant, Olafur Eliasson, Fischli & Weiss, Carsten Höller, Christian Jankowski, Catherine Opie, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Raymond Pettibon, Nicolas Provost, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Jack Pierson,  Ryan Trecartin, James Turrell, and Lawrence Weiner, among others.

Here's the Pitchfork post with more information:

http://pitchfork.com/news/51823-beck-giorgio-moroder-cat-power-jim-jarmusch-little-dragons-sun-araw-and-the-congos-cold-cave-join-doug-aitkens-station-to-station-train-tour/

Fishli & Weiss | Airports

Peter Fischli / David Weiss
Airports
Zurich, Switzerland: Edition Patrick Frey, 1990
unpaginated, 42.6 x 30.3 cm, cloth

Fischli & Weiss | Photographs

Fishi & Weiss
Photographs
Zurich, Switzerland: Edition Patrick Frey, 1989
unpaginated, 23 x 18.5 cm, paper
Text by Patrick Frey in English and Spanish.

Available here for $270 US.

Peter Fischli | Kleenex

I've been getting lots of presents in the mail lately, and last week this gem arrived, something I've had on the want-list for ages. It's the second single from the excellent Swiss band Kleenex, and their last before being forced by Kimberly-Clark to change their name to LiLiPUT. The cover design is by Peter Fischli of Fischli & Weiss (and presumably now working solo, after the death of David Weiss in April of this year).

Released in 1979 on Rough Trade records, the A-side (or "Friendly Side") is the song "You", backed with "Ü" as the "Angry Side". Both tracks appear on the band's 2001 compilation. Hear them both on Youtube, here.


Klaudia Schifferle, the bass player for the group (who now works as a painter and sculptor):

"Peter did all the designs for Kleenex – flyers, LPs, posters the later, I did some of the LiliPUT covers. Peter’s daughter actually worked with Marlene [Marder] and I to design the booklet for the 4x LP set. We did it all in one day, Marlene and I chose the images for the collage and she glued it all together and stuck a few of her own odds and ends in. It was great to have a young woman as part of the process."

Read the full interview here.

Album covers by Artists: Fischli and Weiss

Eugene Chadbourne is an American improvisor, guitarist, banjoist, and inventor of the electric rake. He has collaborated with both experimental improvisors (John Zorn, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, etc.) and more conventional bands and songwriters, such as Camper Van Beethoven, They Might Be Giants, Violent Femmes, and Toronto's Bob Wiseman. His Canadian ties extend back to the 70's, when he produced and hosted a radio show on Radio Radio 104.5 Cable FM in Calgary, Alberta,

His 1993 release Strings is an instrumental record, featuring eight titles, including songs by Sonny Rolling, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. The disc was released on the Swedish indie label Rec Rec (who had previously put out disks by Frith, Negativland, Skeleton Crew, Red Crayola with Art & Language, and Christian Marclay's Footsteps). The "cover art" is atttributed to Fischli and Weiss, however, both the cover photo and the layout are credited to others (see back cover) so it's unclear exactly what their contribution was.