Peter FischliMás latas, algunas bolsas y cajasFebruaryFeb 5th - MarchMar 16th, 2019Gaga Mexico City
More Cans, Some Bags & Boxes, which closely resembles a show done last year in Los Angeles and then in New York, is Peter Fischli’s first at House of Gaga and in Mexico City. This exhibition consists of 21 sculptures and 3 reliefs.
All sculptures were made between 2016 and 2019. The smallest of these measures 6 cm X 9 cm X 11 cm and the largest is 54 cm X 53 cm X 89 cm. The pedestals range in size from 34 cm X 34 cm X 49.5 cm to 120 cm X 120 cm X 60 cm.
All sculptures and pedestals are made of cardboard, then concealed with newspaper (Neue Zürcher Zeitung 1914, Neue Presse 1967/68, Migros Zeitung 2016/17) and construction paper. All sculptures are untitled, although some have “studio titles“ or nicknames.
Two different types of glue have been used: wallpaper glue and white wood glue. All sculptures and pedestals have been painted first with a mixture of indoor emulsion paint and champagne chalk. Additional layers of color were applied using acrylic, silicate paint, gouache, enamel and faux-rust, and in this way a variety of surface effects, patinas and sculptural looks have been achieved. The sculptures were produced with the assistance of Bernhard Hegglin. The pedestals were created and executed with the help of Jason Klimatsas.
Some of the sculptures are based on a memory of artworks made for a movie shot in Los Angeles in 1981. One could say: the better the prop, the closer we come to the real possibility of sculpture. And: the more convincing the sculpture, the more likely that an artist is there too.
Based on a watercolor done by Peter Fischli in 1962 at the age of 10, showing a monkey in a forest, a lithograph was printed in 2016. From that lithograph, 3 foam reliefs were done 2 years later trying to remake or copy all of its elements. The first step was to make the relief in clay. The second was to make a negative— a mold in pink silicon was produced by professionals. By pouring liquid construction foam into these molds, the chemical effect of expansion and the physical effect of compression formed a hard foam copy of the clay model. In a final step, these unpainted monochrome polyurethane foam reliefs were partly and individually overworked by deleting, adding or shifting singular parts of their composition.
Installation
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