It is interesting the coverage that Urs Fischer is getting in the media for his nude figures on display in galleries alongside his artwork. More so than the artwork itself (“Nude model causes a commotion in Urs Fischer exhibition at Palazzo Grassi“). Granted, a nude figure seems to often be a draw especially in the conservative USA, but even more interesting or stirring is some of the works of Urs Fischer that can be seen on his website. It is almost as if the world finds a nude figure a provoking subject to talk about, but has no words to describe his other varied mixed media works. Even his website gives little explanation of his motivations, only a chronological list of exhibitions. It is almost as if the work is not meant to be discussed but felt on an experiential level. The nude perhaps acts as a gateway to engage human discussion. Like a mythical and supernatural guide(Aethena), the nude figure (a real human) acts as a point of communication between the otherwise abstract and incomprehensible telling the human viewer, it is safe to continue onward into the realms if the mysterious, ignorance, uncouth, etc.
Above: “Madame Fisscher” – Urs Fischer
Moving onward beyond the nude figure we are confronted by creativity not unlike a child’s. The artist plays in a field between his adult experience and that of his childish imagination. Pieces such as “Tisch mit” (Table with) – 1995-2001, are at once simultaneously curious, frightening, unsettling, and ultimately mysterious. We are confronted by something that rests somewhat within our experience, and somewhat outside. The image lies far enough outside our experience that we feel as a cat who walks into it’s natural habitat to discover something out of place. Our hackles stand up, and the artist’s work has become an interaction with us in the now. Depending on our own experiences, our feeling may vary from an observation of the humor of the human like leg shapes slung over the table, to the realization that indeed human remains could exist inside bags like that. We may feel our unsettling mortality in the image because of this. Or we could realize like a cat being spooked by a innocuous new object we are in a sense being a bit pranked by the work of art in order to confront us with our ignorance of something otherwise quite mundane.
Above: “Tisch mit” – Urs Fischer
In some of his more straightforward works as “Problem Painting” we are confronted by the equally paradoxical. These are works meant for here and now. What then, would anthropologists looking at these works in some distant future gain in their knowledge of us? What would any of the symbolic jargon of our age speak? There is the image of materialism and beauty of our recent past age, with n only slightly covert sexual tension of a battered screw over the facial portrait of a woman. Again it is a confrontation that is shall we say unscrewing our fixed image of convention. Either that it is confronting us with the more visceral base feelings of our nature. Is the artist a shaman, a madman, or a little of both? Does it even matter?
Above: “Problem Painting” – Urs Fischer
The artists other works are too numerous and varied in approach to be encapsulated here by discussion. So we must instead see them more. Perhaps we can see them in person, but also on the web. Such works do however provide interesting insight into how we experience the works that can be classified as “modern art” that we can experience in our own world and in our own designs as artists. Though we experience them online, they are really a bit of hearsay until we can experience such pieces in person.
Above: “Intelligence of Flowers” – Urs Fischer
Artist’s website: http://www.ursfischer.com/
