Urs FischerShucks & Aww

Fischer’s characteristically unpredictable and aesthetically omnivorous oeuvre—spanning sculpture, installation, painting, and photography—has long included semi-functional elements. Be it a minuscule object or monumental installation, furniture and the built environment, writ small and large, are long-standing features of his practice. Figuring as protagonists and supporting characters alike the facsimiles of a seats, mirrors, or lamps take the stage time and time again.

The ubiquitous Urs Fischer chair made its sly debut in the early ’90s as a sculptural solution to a functional problem, and thereafter this humble studio perch evolved from a conceptual novelty into a robust leitmotif. Over the last three decades, the chairs have multiplied into many sculpted variations: one acts as a human stand-in with a red balloon tied to its back. Some form a troupe dancers digitally choreographed into a rolling, mechanical ballet, while another appears as an architectural outdoor monument. And now a dog shelter? Oh no, it’s simply a chair. Don’t stand and look—take a seat and rest.

Fischer’s penchant for subverting expectation, embracing humor, and elevating the banal shines through in his approach to design; a lamp is not simply a lamp, nor a chair just a chair. Like his sculptures, Fischer’s functional objects come with rigorous abstract underpinnings: he designs with metaphor in mind, adeptly deploying the vast repertoire of materials and limitless imagination at his disposal.

Seating that appears at first glance to be an injection-molded IKEA product is actually bronze-cast, finished in enamel by hand. A tufted pink carpet turns out to be a nipple inscribed with erotica. A discarded pile of grey foam (the exact color of his iconic clay sculptures) has been stacked and carved into a sinkable lounge chair. Each piece is detailed and crafted to perfection, to the exacting standards of Swiss precision for which Fischer is known.

So follow the songbird—she is balanced atop a glowing glass egg, looking on serenely as we wander into the enchanted salon of Urs Fischer.

For more information, please contact jackie@salon94design.com.

Press: gina@companyagenda.com.