Santa Isabel, 52, Madrid
Spain
30 April – 6 July 2009
‘Are Animals People?,’ is an exhibition by Peter Fischli (Zürich, 1952) and David Weiss (Zürich, 1946) organised by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which focuses on a selection of works featuring characters Bear and Rat. Iconic avatars from some of their earliest works, this duo has made a comeback in recent works.
Played by the artists themselves, Bear and Rat stand in as projections of their roles in their own artistic practice. Through this distancing device, Fischli/Weiss ironically manifest an idea of art as an alternative system of knowledge that creates manifold ties between reality and fiction; these roles also embody the conversational style undergirding their collaborative work. The exhibition at the museum’s main facility comprises films from this ongoing saga, and related works. Functioning like a kind of museum devoted to Bear and Rat, it is presided over by vitrines containing the costumes used to play the characters. The Palacio de Cristal, the museum’s site in the Retiro Park, contains their latest work based on the two animals. The presentation of this series offers an excellent chance to acquaint ourselves with the artists’ creative universe.
Peter Fischli and David Weiss have been working together since 1979. Their earliest collaboration, executed immediately prior to the first film featuring Bear and Rat, consisted of a series of photos, their Wurstserie (Sausage series), portraying everyday scenes made from sausages and other ordinary objects. Using everyday materials to counter the solemnity and weight of traditional art genres it proposed an “amateurish” aesthetic closer to children’s handcrafts, and so brought into play many different aspects that would prove central to their later work.
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