{"id":7272,"date":"2016-03-01T11:33:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T16:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/?p=7272"},"modified":"2016-03-01T11:33:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T16:33:41","slug":"exhibition-of-the-month-peter-fischli-david-weiss-how-to-work-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/2016\/03\/01\/exhibition-of-the-month-peter-fischli-david-weiss-how-to-work-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition of the Month – Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

What: Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better<\/em><\/p>\n

When: February 5 – April 27, 2016<\/p>\n

Where: The Guggenheim Museum<\/p>\n

Admission: Free for Macaulay students with the Cultural Passport<\/p>\n

Students and seniors: $18; Adults $25<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Film still from The Point of Least Resistance (1981). Image courtesy of COUNTERPulse. (Flickr, some rights reserved.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are museums always solemn, austere places of reverence? Or can exhibitions make us smile? The Guggenheim Museum\u2019s current exhibition\u00a0Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better<\/em> takes this latter, lighter approach. This exhibition\u00a0asks viewers to cast off seriousness and embrace playfulness, to delight in the whimsical, and to see wonder in the mundane. Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012) are a pair of Swiss artists who from 1979 collaborated on artworks in a variety of media, including sculpture, photography, and video. This remarkable retrospective reveals the underlying unity in all their various works, and also proves that their whimsy is not empty, but rather\u00a0deeply meaningful.<\/p>\n

Consider, for instance, the Venice Videos<\/em> (1995), presented here in the cozy nook of one of the museum\u2019s reading rooms. In these videos Fischli and Weiss strove to create a moving-image encyclopedia of all the unremarkable activities that make up daily existence. The result was, in fact, quite remarkable: this work prompts us to consider how our own lives are formed out of collections of disparate, ordinary, but nevertheless very vivid moments. This encyclopedic impulse continues in the ongoing project Suddenly this Overview<\/em> (1981-), a collection of childlike, unfired, and frequently comic clay sculptures which question the sober, grandiloquent way we often narrate human history.<\/p>\n

This show is organized thematically, rather than chronologically. Indeed, a chronological overview\u00a0would have been too tedious and pedantic for this lively duo. Works are often presented as pairs, and this strategy brilliantly illuminates how certain ideas recurred throughout Fischli and Weiss’\u00a0collaboration. The theme of duality holds the whole exhibition together, starting even before the visitor enters the museum. Installed outside the Guggenheim on Fifth Avenue, Fischli and Weiss\u2019 model Haus <\/em>(1987)\u2014a gray, rigid, bland structure\u2014is a stark contrast to the bright, curving Frank Lloyd Wright Building with which it is paired.<\/p>\n

The exhibition ends with the Question Projections<\/em> (2000-03). In a darkened room just off the top of the ramp, a series of projectors illuminate a big wall with a jumbled collection\u00a0of handwritten questions in three languages: English, German, and Japanese. Questions of all kinds glow and fade, appearing, then disappearing, then reappearing once more:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIs my brain a poorly furnished apartment?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs everything I have ever forgotten as big as a house?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I be happy with my head?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can be content, can\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I need more agitation?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs my soul the ghost that drives my car at night?\u201d<\/p>\n

And, finally:<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have to look at things soberly?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do we have to look at things soberly? Should we? Perhaps not always. Ultimately this exhibition reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously. After all, there can be plenty of beauty, poetry, and meaning in a smile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

While you’re at the Guggenheim, check out these other exhibitions:<\/p>\n

Photo-Poetics: An Anthology<\/em> (closing March 27)<\/p>\n

Kandinsky Gallery<\/em> (through spring 2016)<\/p>\n

…as well as these\u00a0ongoing exhibitions:<\/p>\n

A Long-Awaited Tribute: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House and Pavilion<\/em><\/p>\n

Thannhauser Collection<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What: Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better When: February 5 – April 27, 2016 Where: The Guggenheim Museum Admission: Free for Macaulay students with the Cultural Passport Students and seniors: $18; Adults $25   Are museums always solemn, austere places of reverence? Or can exhibitions make us smile? The Guggenheim Museum\u2019s current exhibition\u00a0Peter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[605,946,975,1026,1662,1794,2127,2347],"class_list":["post-7272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","tag-david-weiss","tag-guggenheim","tag-haus","tag-how-to-work-better","tag-peter-fischli","tag-question-projections","tag-suddenly-this-overview","tag-venice-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}