FISCHLI (Fischli-Weiss)~Peter. Stiller Nachmittag.*
€350,00
Publisher: Kunsthalle Basel, Groninger Museum Year: 1985 Artist: FISCHLI (Fischli-Weiss)~Peter ISBN: 385562.001.35 Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Stiller Nachmittag (Quiet Afternoon): Am schönsten ist das Gleichgewicht, kurz bevor's zusammenbricht. (Balance is most beautiful just before it collapses.) Soft cover. First edition. Photographically illustrated wrappers (20.8 x 14.7 cm), 34 pages, each illustrated with a photograph (31 b x w, 3 color). Titles in both German and English. An important and scarce artists' book in fine condition. Wrappers mildly age-toned. The copy is the true first edition, the second edition being published in 1986 (Edition Monika Spr?th Galerie and Sonnabend Gallery, Cologne and New York) and a third edition title "Quiet Afternoon" was published in 1989 (Edition Akhnaton Gallery, Cairo) "A series black-and-white and colour photographs showing assemblages of everyday objects. The attention is drawn to a dizzying construction, with gravity seemingly working in reverse, creating a state of suspension which cancels the weight and the value of the individual components. Precarious and often on the verge of collapse, the photographs with their suggestive titles are reminiscent of thought experiments or experiments in form and evoke the familiar Surrealist image of the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table (Lautr?amont). The titles alternately function as accurate summaries of the sculptural situation, as humorous suggestions, or as anecdotal descriptions. In the case of the sculptures, which were photographed in a moment of well-balanced standstill, the size of the heterogeneous components or whether they were arranged expansively or in miniature is irrelevant. The attention is drawn to an almost unthinkable and dizzying construction, with gravity seemingly working in reverse, creating a state of suspension which cancels the weight and the value of the individual components. The sculptures only exist in the small-format photographs. As photographs, the often elaborate and expansive sculptures acquire an incidental quality which makes the test assembly of an uneventful afternoon and the momentary construction both more real and more transient. Ultimately, the only evidence of the standstill is the photographs." From the artist's gallery Spröth Magers (Berlin / London):
