Urs Fischer: False Friends Paperback – August 23, 2016 by Massimiliano Gioni (Author), Jean-Yves Marin (Preface), Urs Fischer (Artist), Dakis Joannou (Foreword);DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art

An unusual hybrid between a solo exhibition and a group show, Urs Fisher: False Friends places the oeuvre of Swiss artist Urs Fischer (born 1973) in conversation with the work of a selection of his peers: Pawel Althamer, Maurizio Cattelan, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Robert Gober, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith.

Drawn from the holdings of the Dakis Joannou Collection and installed in the beautiful spaces of Geneva’s Museum of Art and History, False Friends proposes unexpected connections between artworks and aesthetics, methods and materials, offering a reading of contemporary art as a magnetic field of elective affinities and striking variations―a cacophonic concerto of forms.

Based on an exhibition at Geneva’s Museum of Art and History, this book places Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s work alongside that of other artists such as Jeff Koons, Pawel Althamer, and Cindy Sherman. It thus prompts the viewer to draw connections and parallels, while remaining cognizant, thanks to the title “False Friends,” that these connections might be deceptive. As Massimiliano Gioni notes, Fischer’s work encourages “a game of free associations and reminds us that vision quite often goes hand in hand with subjectivity.” One of Fischer’s most arresting pieces is What if the Phone Rings (2003), in which the wax figure of a nude blonde woman with red lipstick reclines in a pose that might be alluring, if not for the destruction caused by lit candle wicks inserted in her head and body. As the sculpture melts into a pool of wax, it provides a fresh spin on the timeless fascination with mortality.