Петер Фишли и Дэвид Вайс
ピーター·フィッシュリ·ヴァイス
彼得菲施利大卫韦斯

Rock on Top of Another Rock

source: blouinartinfo

Fischli/Weiss’s monumental sculpture, “Rock on Top of Another Rock,” outside the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens. It marked the completion of a process started four years ago, when the Swiss duo was first invited to produce a piece for the Norwegian countryside.

As the name indicates, both the Scandinavian sculpture and the one inaugurated today — commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery in partnership with Qatar Museums Authority — are made of two boulders, one sitting seemingly precariously atop the other. Despite their size, there is a sense of ephemerality to the assemblages, as if one stone had just landed on the second one. The new sculpture will remain on Kensington Gardens’ dewy lawns for 12 months, before being permanently relocated to Qatar’s capital city of Doha.

To produce the London version, Fischli/Weiss had to roam the English countryside. “The most difficult thing was to find two rocks,” explained Fischli during the press preview this morning. “When you think of a piece like this, you have something in your mind about how the rocks should look, but the rocks in the world, they don’t care about your thoughts. They are like they are.” The pair eventually settled for two Welsh rocks, but David Weiss didn’t live long enough to see the project come to an end. He died of cancer last year, aged 66.

Partners in crime for more 30 years, Peter Fischli and David Weiss developed a unique cast of conceptual art, characterized by a searing sense of humor, poetry, and a fascination for the mundane. The duo first worked together on a series of little photographed scenes starring cuts of cold meat and gherkin stubs (“Sausage Series,” 1979). For “Equilibres” (1984-7), they staged still-lifes of hazardously balanced objects: a bit of courgette on a carrot stuck into a grater (“Quiet Afternoon”) or five stilettos nestled into one another to make a circle (“The Three Sisters”).

These led almost naturally to the duo’s best-known piece, “The Way Things Go” (1987), a dazzling 30-minute film in which objects and pieces of equipment are set in what seems to be an unstoppable chain reaction. The combination of utter simplicity and technical complexity also underpins “Rock on Top of Another Rock,” which was described this morning by Fischli as “a minimum gesture for a maximum effect.”
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source: phaidon
Phaidon braved an early start to the day in London today to attend the opening of rock on Top of Another Rock by the artists Fishchli/Weiss at the Serpentine. Peter Fischli (David Weiss sadly passed away last April) gave a short address to the assembled crowd during which he spoke about the enjoyment he had travelling around the British countryside to source the rocks for the project and how it was important that “they were seen as just rocks” not sourced from anywhere special or “exotic” as he put it.

Formed of two glacial igneous granite boulders and standing approximately 5.5 metres high on a concrete base, the monumental sculpture will be visible from a number of viewpoints in Kensington Park. It’s the duo’s first public sculpture in the UK and parallels a similar project in Valdresflya, Norway. The rocks echo the earliest and most basic types of monuments found around the world.

Rock on Top of Another Rock, 2012 – Fischli/ Weiss Serpentine Gallery, London copyright Peter Fischli David Weiss Photograph: Morley von Sternberg
“In Norway and here,” Fischli said, “to put one rock on top of another rock in the wilderness is the first thing you do if you want to make a mark. When you walk and you want to find your way back… you make this mark. It is a very archaic, simple thing, but it is referencing the [Robert] Venturi duck. We wanted to make something that forces you to stop your car and get out to take a photograph.”

Fischli spoke how important it was to him that a park is “a kind of man made wilderness”. The London rocks will reside at the spot near the Serpentine Gallery for a year and become, as curator Hans Ulrich Obrist (also present) said, “a meeting place for Londoners.”

Rock on Top of Another Rock, Rock on Top of Another Rock, Valdresflya – Fischli/ Weiss
Rock on Top of Another Rock relates to the artists’ 1984 series of photographs, Equilibres/Quiet Afternoon, which show precariously balanced sculptures moments before their collapse. Although our photo doesn’t quite show it, the rocks’ massive presence also teeters between stability and instability.

With their deceptively simple gesture, Fischli/Weiss have once again achieved the delicate balancing act (literally in this case) of creating a work that is at once incongruous and startling, and yet entirely in tune with its site – both locally and historically. The artist duo have continuously demonstrated that irony and sincerity could not exist without each other and that, in fact, there is no sincerity like irony.

The installation was funded by the qatar Museums Authority. After a year it will be transported to Dohar where it will reside forever. If you’d like to learn more about the work of Fischli/ Weiss we have a very, very good book on them in our excellent contemporary artists series.
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source: serpentinegalleriesorg

This event, programmed in consultation with Peter Fischli, will explore the fascinating history of stones and rocks in art. Precariousness, stability and a sense of the absurd, evoked by Fishli/Weiss’s monumental sculpture at the Serpentine Gallery, will be discussed, offering a unique insight into the project and the artists’ wider practice.

Since the late 1970s Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012) have captivated audiences with their transformations of the common-place and their finely-judged balance of humour and seriousness. Fischli/Weiss’s work crosses a wide range of media, but underpinning all of it is a spirit of discovery that encourages us to take a fresh look at our surroundings. Everyday objects take on an unexpectedly lifelike quality; they balance on each other, play off each other and collide into one another. Fischli/Weiss won the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Biennale in 2003 for Questions, an installation of over 1,000 photographic slides of handwritten existential questions the artists had collected over many years.
Adam Caruso and Peter St John established Caruso St John Architects in 1990. Projects by the practice include; New Art Gallery Walsall, Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, Brick House, London and Gagosian Galleries in London, Rome, Paris and Hong Kong. Recently completed projects include Nottingham Contemporary and the new Café at Chiswick Gardens. The practice have been architects for Tate Britain since 2007. Adam Caruso is Professor of Architecture and Construction at the ETH Zurich.
With support from The Royal Norwegian Embassy, London

Featured Artists:
Fischli/Weiss
Since they began working together in the late 1970s, Swiss artists Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012) have become known for their transformations of the common-place and their finely-judged balance of humour and seriousness. Fischli/Weiss’s practice crosses a wide range of media, but underpinning all of their work is a spirit of discovery that encourages us to take a fresh look at our surroundings.
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source: matthewmarks

Since 1979 Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012) have been collaborating on a body of work that combines, rearranges, or otherwise manipulates their daily experiences into something new and unexpected. Executed in a variety of media, including unfired clay, polyurethane, photography, and video, their work playfully ignores the distinction between high and low art. The duo is perhaps best known for the 1987 film The Way Things Go, in which an improbable, Rube Goldberg-esque chain of events unfolds involving household objects and detritus in their studio.

The work of Fischli and Weiss has been exhibited at major museums and biennials around the world. The artists represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and were awarded the 2003 Golden Lion for Questions (1981-2002), an installation of more than a thousand existential queries collected over several years. Fischli and Weiss also took part in Documenta 8 (1987) and 10 (1997). Their retrospective In A Restless World was organized by the Walker Art Center in 1996 and traveled to San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Boston. In 2006 Tate Modern presented another retrospective, Flowers and Questions, which traveled to the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. More recently, they participated in Venice’s 2012 Architectural Biennale and 2013 Art Biennale and have had exhibitions at the Art institute of Chicago (2011) and the Serpentine Gallery, London (2013). Peter Fischli lives and works in Zurich.
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source: psatrueart
这件作品是艺术家在 1984 至 1985 年创作的系列作品《平衡》（Équilibres）中的一件，被收入法国国家现代艺术博物馆刚刚出版的摄影作品集。在这件作品中，一系列物品被刻意地摆放堆积，呈现出失衡甚至即将坍塌的状态。难以维持的平衡，即刻将发生的坍塌，转瞬即逝的物品呈现方式，这些都让观者产生一种不稳定的感受，这是与面对传统静物时绝然不同的观感。
日常修修补补的物品在这里成为主角，看似杂乱无章实而经过精心安排，废物又焕发新的生机。菲施利和魏斯在创作中总是使用回收物品，并且引入手工活和旧物的概念，打破了对于创作材料和完美构图的传统概念。
作品以五个毫无逻辑关系的物体命名，这种安排表现出突破传统、不落窠臼的特点。平日毫不起眼的物品以各种结构被堆砌起来，结果固然难以持久，但它们的状态散发着内在的诗性力量，大大超出观者的预期。
魏斯生于 1946 年，菲施利生于 1952 年，两人均在慕尼黑生活和工作，从 1979 年开始一起合作。他们在创作中对混杂、不协调的物体进行排列，再以雕塑、雕塑影片或雕塑摄影的形式呈现。两人的无间合作打破了艺术家只能以个体进行创作的观念。摄影与电影自始至终都是他们创作形式的一部分。1992年末至 1993 年初，菲施利和魏斯的展览在蓬皮杜中心举行，克利斯朵夫•多米诺（Christophe Domino）曾在展览图册中指出，从雕塑到摄影的过渡之间，事物的性质也发生了变化，“《平衡》实现了对雕塑的去物质化（改以摄影呈现），同时又保留了其现实具体的一面。”
在菲施利和魏斯的创作中，幽默也扮演着重要角色，它并非对玩乐和趣味的模仿，而是不透声色地、精妙地联通作品的直接语义和象征意义。
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source: soan1981blogspot
Peter Fischli (né en 1952 à Zurich) et David Weiss (né en 1946 à Zurich) produisent depuis les années 80 un œuvre protéiforme largement récompensée (Lion d’Or de la Biennale de Venise 2003). Le duo utilise de nombreux supports: installations, sculptures, photographies, vidéos… Entre humour et légèreté, métaphysique et ironie, le travail des deux artistes questionne avec distance le monde, s’interroge sur la difficulté à donner un sens à l’existence humaine. Leur art se situe dans la lignée de l’esprit dada en créant de légers décalages, des détournements propres à révéler la dimension incongrue et poétique du réel. Se jouant de l’attente du spectateur, ils interrogent les conventions de l’art en associant les références à la culture savante et à la culture populaire.
“Est-ce qu’il est possible de vivre sans le moindre doute, en ayant pourtant la possibilité de savoir quelque chose qui soit pertinent en ce qui concerne la vie ? ”
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source: artsvisuels2012wordpress
Dans leur série Equilibres, les artistes suisses Peter Fischli et David Weiss assemblent des objets ordinaires les uns aux autres en équilibre. En 1987 leur film le cours des choses, met des objets (pneus, planches de bois, bouilloire, sac poubelle…) en mouvement et crée une réaction en chaine hallucinante de 30 minutes.
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source: arteseanpblogspot
Die Gezetzlosen (1984-1985) Série Equilibrium.
Peter Fischili (1952-) David Weiss (1964-) Ambos nasceram em Zurick, onde vivem e trabalham. Uma longa e produtiva colaboração entre os dois artistas iniciada em 1979 transformou a dupla entre os mais conceituados artistas da Suiça e da Europa. Com filmes, fotos e esculturas eles conseguem criar com humor e ironia objetos e situações do dia a dia dentro do universo da arte. Ganharam o Golden Lion de 2003 da Bienal de Veneza. Retrospectiva na Tate Gallery.