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Extended through December 15, 2018

Urs Fischer

Dasha

September 12–December 15, 2018
Davies Street, London

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Installation video

Installation view Artwork © Urs Fischer. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Urs Fischer. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Works Exhibited

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018 Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018

Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)
© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018 (detail) Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018 (detail)

Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)
© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018 (detail) Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Urs Fischer, Dasha, 2018 (detail)

Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, pigment, stainless steel, and wicks, 66 ⅞ × 57 ¼ × 58 ½ inches (170 × 145.4 × 148.7 cm)
© Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

About

The world has always been ending. 
—Urs Fischer

Dasha (2018) is a larger-than-life-size wax candle depicting Dasha Zhukova, a personal friend of the artist. Cast entirely in wax, she wears a pink dress and is seated in a chair. A wick at the top of her head will be lit, and the candle will slowly melt over the course of the exhibition. Additional wicks strategically placed on the figure will be lit until the sculpture is reduced to a pile of wax drippings.

Fischer’s candle sculptures are captivating in their materiality and haunting in their implications; they serve as both portraits and meditations on time and gravity, life and death. As with traditional memento mori, viewers are reminded of the transience of life, beauty, and even art. Fischer began to make the candles in the early 2000s, with a series of crudely rendered female nudes, standing upright or lounging in groups. After a period of sustained research into mold making and casting, he began to make more realistic figurative candles that could burn for several months at a time, such as Untitled (2011), which included a full-size replica of Giambologna’s sixteenth-century sculpture The Rape of the Sabine Women, and Marsupiale (Fabrizio) (2017), a hybrid of the Florentine antique dealer Fabrizio Moretti and an oversize bust of St. Leonard. The figure of Moretti was cast in red wax, and wicks placed in order that it would melt into the white bust, which remained intact and unburned, leaving a bloody wound across the patron saint of prisoners.

Urs Fischer: Wave

Urs Fischer: Wave

In this video, Urs Fischer elaborates on the creative process behind his public installation Wave, at Place Vendôme, Paris.

Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Winter 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022

The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.

Urs Fischer: Denominator

Urs Fischer: Denominator

Urs Fischer sits down with his friend the author and artist Eric Sanders to address the perfect viewer, the effects of marketing, and the limits of human understanding.

Urs Fischer and Francesco Bonami speaking amidst the installation of "Urs Fischer: Lovers" at Museo Jumex, Mexico City

Urs Fischer: Lovers

The exhibition Urs Fischer: Lovers at Museo Jumex, Mexico City, brings together works from international public and private collections as well as from the artist’s own archive, alongside new pieces made especially for the exhibition. To mark this momentous twenty-year survey, the artist sits down with the exhibition’s curator, Francesco Bonami, to discuss the installation.

Awol Erizku, Lion (Body) I, 2022, Duratrans on lightbox, 49 ⅜ × 65 ⅝ × 3 ¾ inches (125.4 × 166.7 × 9.5 cm) © Awol Erizku

Awol Erizku and Urs Fischer: To Make That Next Move

On the eve of Awol Erizku’s exhibition in New York, he and Urs Fischer discuss what it means to be an image maker, the beauty of blurring genres, the fetishization of authorship, and their shared love for Los Angeles.

Installation view of Urs Fischer’s Untitled (2011) in Ouverture, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2021. Artwork © Urs Fischer, courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, Agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Bourse de Commerce

William Middleton traces the development of the new institution, examining the collaboration between the collector François Pinault and the architect Tadao Ando in revitalizing the historic space. Middleton also speaks with artists Tatiana Trouvé and Albert Oehlen about Pinault’s passion as a collector, and with the Bouroullec brothers, who created design features for the interiors and exteriors of the museum.

News

Photo: Chad Moore

Artist Spotlight

Urs Fischer

June 24–30, 2020

Urs Fischer mines the potential of materials—from clay, steel, and paint to bread, dirt, and produce—to create works that disorient and bewilder. Through scale distortions, illusion, and the juxtaposition of common objects, his paintings, sculptures, photographs, and large-scale installations explore themes of perception and representation while maintaining a witty irreverence and mordant humor.

Photo: Chad Moore