Gagosian is to return to the Marciano Art Foundation from August 20 to October 29, 2022, with an exhibition of unique digital sculptures by Urs Fischer from the series CHAO? #1–#501 which have been compiled into a set of short-form videos. This will be the first time that works from the series—in which MakersPlace is the technical partner—have been exhibited offline. Additionally, a program of “swap meets” and indoor musical performances will be presented throughout the duration of the exhibition.
Across a wildly protean oeuvre, Fischer mines the potential of materials—from clay, steel, and paint to dirt, bread, and vegetables—to generate an uncanny, unsettling “collision of things.” Through distortions of scale and the reimagining of common objects and images using technological intervention, his sculptures, paintings, photographs, and installations explore themes of perception and representation with an off-kilter wit. Often evoking historical genres and motifs, Fischer embraces transformation and decay, producing art that inhabits a space between the real and the imagined.
The exhibition in Los Angeles features five hundred unique digital sculptures presented as three separate sequences of one- to three-minute videos on a trio of colossal suspended screens. Each sculpture represents a pair of converging objects depicted in relative scale to one another, and while each component is in constant motion, it also maintains an unbroken connection with its companion. All the objects selected by Fischer are human-made and were transformed into their current form by a process of 3-D scanning.
In addition to being projected in the gallery, the sculptures reside on the blockchain as unique, documented entities. According to Fischer, a “visualization” of one of the digital sculptures can manifest
“in any format that is capable of displaying, playing, or showing a digital sculpture in motion. They will exist in any space, be it virtual, real, or a fusion of the two, now and forever, through current and future technology.”
Found furniture provides seating in the gallery, establishing a comfortable environment for visitors. In the foyer, some of the sculptures’ sources are displayed in vitrines, allowing viewers to experience the items’ metamorphosis from analog to virtual. Fischer has also activated the space of the Marciano Art Foundation with a program of weekend events. These include commissioned indoor musical performances by local performers including Pete Drungle, who will play the piano on the opening day, August 20, from 12 to 6pm.
Artist Rob Pruitt will curate a series of “swap meets,” which echo the process of object pairing that plays out in the sculptures by allowing visitors to exchange one item for another. The exhibition will also include a short film about the conception and production of the works, while CHAO? #501, an additional work incorporating all the digital sculptures from the series, will be on view in Fischer’s forthcoming exhibition at Gagosian New York in September.
URS FISCHER
CHAO? #1–#500
August 20–October 29, 2022
Gagosian at the Marciano Art Foundation
4357 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
About the artist
Urs Fischer was born in Zurich and lives and works in New York. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Fondation Carmignac, Paris; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; Kunstmuseum Basel; FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille, France; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; and Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. Exhibitions include Marguerite de Ponty, New Museum, New York (2009–10); 54th Biennale di Venezia (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 (2013); Mon cher…, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France (2016); The Public & the Private, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2017); The Lyrical and the Prosaic, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2019–20); Lovers, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2022); and PLAY, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2022).
