A wick at the top of its head will be lit and the candle will slowly melt over the course of the exposure. The additional wicks strategically placed on the figure will be illuminated until the sculpture is reduced to a pile of wax gobs.
Le candle sculptures by Fischer they are captivating in their materiality and disturbing in their implications; they serve as both portraits and meditations on time and gravity, life and death.
As in the traditional memento mori, viewers are reminded of the transience of life, beauty and even art. Fischer began making candles in the early 2000s, with a series of crudely rendered female nudes, standing or reclining in groups. After a period of continuous mold-making and casting research, he began making more lifelike figurative candles that could burn for several months at a time, such as Untitled (2011), which included a life-size replica of Giambologna's 2017th-century sculpture . The Rape of the Sabine Women and Marsupiale (Fabrizio) (XNUMX), hybrid of the Florentine antiques dealer Fabrizio Moretti and an oversized bust of San Leonardo. Moretti's figure was cast in red wax, and wicks arranged so that he melted into the white bust, which remained intact and unburnt, leaving a bloody wound across the patron saint of prisoners.
Urs Fischer was born in Zurich in 1973 and lives and works in New York. His collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; FRAC-Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Marseille, France; Fondation Carmignac, Paris; Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; and Art Museum of Southern Switzerland, Lugano, Switzerland. Recent institutional exhibitions include Kir Royal, Kunsthaus Zürich (2004); Not My House Not My Fire, Center Pompidou, Paris (2004); Mary Poppins, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston Art Museum, TX (2006); 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Marguerite de Ponty, New Museum, New York (2009-10); 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Skinny Sunrise, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2012); Madame Fisscher, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2013); YES, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, Greece (2013); Small Axe, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2016); Mon cher …, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France (2016); and Urs Fischer: The Public and the Private, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2017).
URS FISCHER-DASHA
12 September - 3 November 2018
gagosian
17-19 Davies Street, London
Cover Image:
URS FISCHER
