Peter Fischli & David Weiss

I don't know enough about them. They are based in Switzerland. I halfway read an Art Review article about them once. I just now re-saw a video i didn't remember was theirs..."The Way things go"

I believe they made a sculpture I saw in chelsea that I was ecstatic about - a stuffed animal of a bear that was laying on the grounded sleeping - its breath subtle as the fake furry brown tummy moved up and down. I was so delighted when i saw that. More than the trickery aspect of it - i also have a love for the uncanny - in the common use of the word - and a love for the idea of inanimate objects having a life.

I just found the stuffed animal image - it was a rat and a bear - which they claim are representations of themselves. I think i remember them not making an individual claim as to who was the bear and who was the rat.

wikipedia blurb:
"For their work, they make use of a large bandwidth of artistic forms of expression: Film and photography, art-books, sculptures made out of different materials, and multimedia-installations. They adapt objects and situations of the everyday life and place them into an artistic context — often using humour and irony."

from Matthew Mark's:
"Since 1979 Peter Fischli and David Weiss 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 sculpture, film, and photography, 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 Way Things Go" is entertaining to watch - no matter the increase in technology in our society; mechanical -this leads to this visible sequence- is always a thrill! Especially if fire is involved. I guess watching something that makes you wonder how it was planned, tested, the physics involve - along with the element of surprise - will always somehow connect to the human. it is playful. it is like being a kid. It is sculptural - not only the display within the room but also the individual reactions of materials to fire, water, movement - how do these materials perform? what will they do in reaction?

From Matthew Marks again:

"Fischli and Weiss won the Golden Lion prize at the 2003 Venice Biennale for Questions, an installation of over 1,000 photographic slides on which existential questions the artists had collected over many years are handwritten. "

Action, Reaction, Everyday objects used and placed in new ways, playfulness, inquiry, questions - i can see where existential questions can fit into this.... its almost like all their work is a question?

What will happen if we do this? What will happen to this bottle if it is set here like this? What will happen when we die? Is there a god?

I haven't been thorough on looking at their work... i don't know how the shoe fits in... more later.