Urs Fischer

9 Balfour Mews London W1
Private View 11 October 2007 6-8

For his third show for Sadie Coles HQ, Urs Fischer transforms a storage space in Mayfair into a scene of gloomy contemplation. In this exhibition entitled Uh..., perhaps to reflect the moment of revelation or contemplation of its content, there is a work that could be described as ‘a volume sculpture’. An investigation of space, the work is a continuation of the artist’s exploration of vanitas previously manifest in skeletons and melting bodies of wax (as in his first show for HQ that included What if the phone rings (2003)). Talismanic, the installation possesses a physical presence so audacious that surprises and shocks in equal measure.

Spontaneous and unpredictable, Fischer says ‘My work never ends up looking the way I intended… all that matters is if the artwork takes on a life of its own.’ Many of his pieces begin in play and consistently evidence their experimental evolution, even when highly finished, and they often appear in a state of decay or metaphysical transformation.  If the entropic space between opposites is one of Fischer’s staples, the alchemy of the commonplace is another - furniture and fruit being among his favourite subjects. Brimming with voodoo or shamanistic energy, Fischer’s works positively palpitate with anthropomorphism, eliding definition between beautiful and ugly, elegant and awkward, graceful and burdened.

Urs Fischer was born in Switzerland in 1973. He has had solo shows throughout Europe and USA, including Urs Fischer: Kir Royal, Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (cat.) and Pompidou Centre, Paris (cat.), both in 2004. His work has been included in numerous group shows including the Venice Biennale in 2003, 2005, and 2007 and is currently on display in Fracture/Figure at DESTE in Athens, Greece. 

For further information or images please contact Julia Holdway on +44 20 7434 2227 or

N.B. Opening hours Tuesday - Saturday 11-6

Urs Fischer’s interest lies with the everyday objects of our surroundings - food, drink, tables, chairs, cats. For his second show at HQ, a balloon provides an improbable support for a cast metal broom and an office chair is the unlikely ammunition fired from a small cannon. Instead of using and reconfiguring ready mades, Fischer makes objects, via a production process that is organic and experimental, embracing both construction and destruction. The traces of this process remain at the core of the finished work and even then there is somehow an, albeit largely false, impression that they retain the potential for further evolution. This is perhaps not least due to the artist’s choice of riddle-like titles, a linguistic complement to the works, in which he combines common words into unexpected phrases, throwing out surprising verbal and visual connections. Fischer’s finished works are unified by an upbeat feel.

Need no chair when walking
Urs Fischer’s first exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ will include a sculpture of three women as life-size candles.  The figures will violently self-destruct during the show, as the wax melts and limbs start to drop off.  Playing on our familiarity with the female nude in art, the sculpture subverts the genre’s traditionally elegant and expensive associations through the artist’s choice of material and how it dictates the evolution of the form.  This lumpen version of the Three Graces leaves open-ended both the making and finishing of the object.  Also in the exhibition are Fischer’s groups of drawings that seem to start as doodles of ideas and images in the artist’s head.

Having trained as a photographer Urs Fischer now works in a variety of media including painting, drawing and sculpture. His inspiration and materials are grabbed from his immediate, everyday surroundings and his work carries signs of the spontaneous, organic nature of its evolution, further characterised by an easy sense of humour.  Fischer has had solo shows at Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Institute of Contemporary Art, London and the Kunsthaus Glarus.  Born in Zurich in 1973, he lives and works in Berlin, Zurich and Los Angeles. 

1973 Born in Zurich, Switzerland
Lives and works in Berlin, Los Angeles and Zurich

Studied Photography at the Schule für Gestaltung, Zurich
Visited ‘de ateliers’, Amsterdam
Artist in Residence, Delfina Studios, London

Solo Exhibitions

2007 Large, dark & empty, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich
52nd International Art Exhibition Biennale, Venice (with Ugo Rondinone)
Sadie Coles HQ, London
Cockatoo Island, Kaldor Art Projects and the Sydney Federation Trust, Sydney
2006 The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland
Gallerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich
Mary Poppins, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Houston (TX)
Paris 1919, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Galerie Massimo de Carlo, Milan
2005 Hamburger Bahnhof, Flick Collection, Berlin
“Mr Watson - come here, I want to see you”, Hydra Workshop, Hydra, Greece (cat.)
Jet Set Lady, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Istituto dei Ciechi, Milan, Italy
Camden Arts Centre, London
Fig, Nut & Pear, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
2004 Elton John?, Sadie Coles HQ, London
Feigge, Nuss und Birne, Gruppe Oesterreichische Guggenheim, Wien, Austria
Urs Fischer: Kir Royal, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland (cat.)
Pompidou Centre, Paris (cat.)
2003 Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Need no chair when walking, Sadie Coles HQ, London
2002 What should an owl do with a fork, Project Room, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica (CA)
Mystique Mistake, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland
Bing Crosby, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
2001 Mastering the Complaint, Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland
2000 Capillon – Urs just does it for the girls (with Amy Adler), Delfina Studios, London
Tagessuppen/Soups of the Day and Domestic Pairs Project (with Keith Tyson), Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland
The Membrane – Why I don’t mind bad-mooded people, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam
Without a Fist - Like a Bird, ICA, London
1999 Espressoqueen – Worries and other stuff you have to think about before you get ready for the big easy, Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland
1998 Hammer, Galerie Walcheturm, Zurich, Switzerland
1997 Frs Uischer, Galerie Walcheturm, Zurich, Switzerland

Group Exhibitions

2007 Disorder in the House, Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels
Domestic Irony, Museion, Bolzano, Italy
Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
The Hamster Wheel, Tese della Novissima, Arsnale de Venezia, Venice, Italy
Biennale d’ art contemporain, Lyon, France
The Third Mind, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (curated by Ugo Rondinone)
Fractured Figure, Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, N. Ionia, Athens
2006 Infinite Painting: Contemporary Painting and Global Realism, Villa Manin
Centre for Contemporary Art, Passariano, Codroipo (Udine), Italy (curated
by Francesco Bonami and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto)
The Vincent, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Strange I’ve Seen That Face Before, Kunst, Design, Architektur im Kopf, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
(Swiss Made) The Art of Falling Apart, Sammlung Hauser & Wirth, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Big Bang, Pompediou Centre, Paris
Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
The High Lane Museum, The Studio, Dublin
2005 Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist’s Eye, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, (IL); Hayward Gallery, London; MART Rovereto, Italy
Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik
Ma Non Al Sud, Gallerie Civica d’Arte Contemporanea di Siracusa, Siracusa, Italy
Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam
(Swiss Made) The Art of Falling Apart, Sammlung Hauser & Wirth, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Closing Down, Bortolami Dayan Gallery, New York
Put it in your mouth / I’ll see you on the dark side of the prune, Rivington Arms, New York
Modern Institute, Glasgow
2004 I Hate You – The Falckenberg Collection Meets Louisiana, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
Monument to Now, Deste Foundation, Athens
L’Air du Temps – Collection Printemps Eté 2004, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich
Regen Projects, Los Angeles (CA)
Sculpture: Precarious Realism between Melancholie and the Comic, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Memorable Memory, Migros Museum Collection, Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen, Switzerland
2003 Outlook, Athens (cat.)
50. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (cat.)
Inaugural Show, GBE Modern, New York
Breathing the Water, Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland
2002 Exile on Main Street, NICC, Antwerp, Belgium
The Object Sculpture, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England
My Head is on fire but my heart is full of Love, Chrlottenborg Exhibition Space, Copenhagen
Lowland Lullaby (with Ugo Rondinone and John Giorno), Swiss Institute,
New York
The House of Fiction, Sammlung Hauser und Wirth, Lokremise St. Gallen, Switzerland
PoT: The Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art – The Independent, Liverpool, England (cat.)
2001 Squatters, Museo Serralves, Porto, Portugal
Ziviler Ungehorsam, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany
Enduring Love, Klemes Gasser & Tanja Grunert, New York
2000 Drawings, Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
Manifesta 3, Ljubljiana
Sammlung (1). The Oldest Possible Memory, Sammlung Hauser und Wirth in der Lokremise St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
1999 Eidgenössische Preise für Freie Kunst, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
999, Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Ticino, Bellinzona, Switzerland
Le Repubbliche dell’Arte, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy
Holding Court, Entwistle Gallery, London
1998 ironisch/ironic, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland
de ateliers, De Ateliers, Amsterdam
1997 Dokumentation, Hotel, Zurich, Switzerland
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per l’Arte, Turin, Italy
été 97, Centre Genevois de Gravure Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
1995/6 Calypso (with Antonietta Peeters and Avery Preesman), Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam
1995 Assistent (with Maurus Gmür), Binz 39, Zurich
Karaoke 444&222 too, South London Gallery, London
Bundesstipendianten, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland

Awards and Grants

1999 Providentia-Preis, YoungArt
Eidgenössisches Stipendium für freie Kunst
1997 Kiefer-Hablitzel Stipendium
1995 Eidgenössisches Stipendium für freie Kunst