Beschreibung:

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION Peter Fischli and David Weiss Floß 1982-83 painted polyurethane foam (in 72 parts) installation dimension approximately 500 x 400 x 350 cm. (196 7/8 x 157 1/2 x 137 3/4 in.) Signed and dated 'PF, DW 1983' on the book component's cover.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artists Exhibited Cologne, European Kunsthalle, Mai 98 – Positionen zeitgenössischer Kunst seit den sechziger Jahren, 21 May – 19 July 1998 Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Peter Fischli & David Weiss Fragen & Blumen. Eine Retrospektive, 16 November 2007 – 03 February 2008 Milan, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Peter Fischli & David Weiss Altri fiori e altre domande, 30 January – 16 March 2008 Literature Sascha Anderson, Tiefe Blicke: Kunst der achtziger Jahre aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, der DDR, Österreich und der Schweiz, Cologne, 1985, fig. 163 (illustrated) Video Fischli & Weiss 'Floß', 1982-83 "It was about the world of garages and cars and workshops, and on the other hand the farm; or to be more precise, about how these two worlds flow into one another. And the raft is a situation where the person loading this raft must make certain decisions. It’s a context that creates a hierarchy." - Peter Fischli Peter Sumner, director and head of Contemporary Art in London, presents a sculpture by Peter Fischli and David Weiss entitled 'Floß', a highlight from the Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 16 October. Catalogue Essay “It was about the world of garages and cars and workshops, and on the other hand the farm; or to be more precise, about how these two worlds flow into one another. And the raft is a situation where the person loading this raft must make certain decisions. It’s a context that creates a hierarchy.” -Peter Fischli One of the most extraordinary sustaining collaborators of the late twentieth century, Peter Fischili and David Weiss have devoted their lauded practice to the “poetics of banality” since 1979. Exploring the context of quotidien objects, the duo have employed mediums such as video art, slides, sculpture, installation and photography in their investigations. With humour and wit, the enigmatic duo embrace their lineage with Dada, Surrealism, Minimalism and Pop, while refusing the allure of artistic affectation. Banality and absurdity abound in Fischli/Weiss’ Floß, 1982. Constructed entirely of polyurthane foam, the present lot exemplifies the artists ongoing fascination with the representation of commoditised objects, inbuing their works with an anthropomorphic quality. Literally translating into the term raft, Floß or Floss depicts a makeshift raft comprised of fake wooden planks loaded with seemingly random artifacts; skulls, traditional wood carvings, a sixteenth century chair, rifle, anvil and perhaps most surprisingly, the large sculpted body of a pig and eight suckling piglets. These objects, among others placed on the raft, appear to harken back to fragmented pasts and fading ways of life- a small colony set adrift with few sustaining parts. This is Noah’s Ark gone awry. Challenging the boundaries of objecthood, the artists have seemingly plucked artifacts from their respective roles transforming them into a chaotic mess. Adding to this the negotion between the real object and their facsimiles the objects that comprise the raft mingle with each other in an implausible, humorous scenario and yet they are all comprised of the same material. With objects carved out of polyurethane, Fischli/Weiss confront and confound the viewer with the awareness of their surroundings– be it museum or gallery, “[i]n this lofty ceremonial context, their imitations of everyday objects take on the appearance of ‘reverse readymades.’ They are perfect imitations built upon painstakingly mimetic manual labour, of the kind we are familiar with from the annals of art history.” (Press Release, Kunsthaus Zurich, Peter Fischli and David Weiss 2007). While crediting Duchamp for the readymade object, one need not look further than Jasper Johns’ beer cans, Painted Bronze (Ballantine Ale), 1960, or Claes Oldenburg’s The Store and his soft sculptures to understand the intrigue in the unspectacular. Fischli/Weiss’ 1981 series Plötztlich diese Übersicht (Suddenly this Overview) sought to ignite a disc