Wednesday 18 January 2012

Urs Fischer at The New Museum, NYC


Comparisons may be odious, but Fischer's art betrays all kinds of influences and careless correspondences. A pink cast of a Beaux-Arts ornamental street lamp has gone all droopy, like a wilting guest at a Salvador Dali theme night. It reminds me of Martin Kippenberger's wonky streetlights, but they were funny. This is just rhetorical. Kippenberger's tempestuous spirit is one of several hanging over Fischer's work. In 2007 Fischer had a crew excavate a hole, eight feet deep, beneath the ground floor of Gavin Brown's New York gallery, while deliberately omitting to inform the landlord. He called the work You. It was a sort of grave; a belated continuation of an already familiar artistic gambit, but audacious and raw. Fischer has also cast heads in the manner of Bruce Nauman, and perpetrated a bewildering variety of works in his career, which began in the mid-90s. Some of what Fischer does may be unoriginal, but unoriginality is something all artists have to deal with. His art has always had a lot of spirit, even when he reprises the familiar.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/nov/09/urs-fischer-review

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