Urs Fischer
| Urs Fischer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1973 (age 43–44) Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Education | Schule fur Gestaltung, Zurich |
| Known for | Photography, contemporary art |
| Spouse(s) | Tara Subkoff (m. 2014–16) |
| Website | www |
Urs Fischer (born 1973) is a Swiss-born artist living in New York City.
Born to two doctors as the second of two children in 1973, Fischer began his career in Switzerland where he studied photography at the Schule für Gestaltung, Zurich. After the basic, first-year course in art and design, he enrolled in the school's photography department, and supported himself by working as a bouncer at Zurich night clubs and house parties.
Fischer moved to Amsterdam in 1993, at the age of nineteen, and had his first solo show at a gallery in Zurich in 1996. He later lived in London, Los Angeles, and Berlin before moving to New York. In Berlin and New York, he shared studios with fellow artist Rudolf Stingel.
Fischer's subversive approach to art is often considered to be influenced by anti-art movements like Neo-Dada, Lost Art, or the Situationist International. Since Fischer began showing his work, in the mid-nineteen-nineties, in Europe, he has produced an enormous number of objects, drawings, collages, and room-size installations.
In Untitled (Bread House) (2004-2005), Fischer constructed a Swiss style chalet out of loaves of bread. His Bad Timing, Lamb Chop! (2004-2005), displays a giant wooden chair (actually cast aluminum) intersecting a half empty packet of cigarettes dramatically increased in scale.
Between 2005 and 2006, he created Untitled (Lamp/Bear), an edition of three 23-foot-tall, 20-ton, bronze bears (two are yellow, the third is blue) intersected with generic functional lamps that appear to spring out of their heads; in 2011, one of the pieces was displayed for five months at Seagram Building's plaza before being auctioned at Christie's and is currently displayed at Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar. The blue version was installed at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in June 2016.
In his series Problem Paintings, the artist juxtaposes headshots of old Hollywood movie stars, with silkscreened pictures of either fruit or hardware.
For his 2007 show at Gavin Brown's Enterprise in New York, Fischer excavated the gallery's main room, bringing in contractors to dig an eight-foot hole where the floor had been, and calling the result You. In Death of a Moment (2007), two entire walls are equipped with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and set in motion by a hydraulic system, to create the surreal effect of a room in flux, morphing in shape and size.
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