The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureArt

Urs Fischer: The Kiss at Sadie Coles HQ

Urs Fischer: The Kiss at Sadie Coles HQ | Exhibition review
3 February 2017
Alexander Bawden
Avatar
Alexander Bawden
3 February 2017

Exhibition and art

Alexander Bawden

Urs Fischer: The Kiss at Sadie Coles HQ

★★★★★

Dates

1st February 2017 - 11th March 2017

Links & directions

TwitterWebsiteMap

Unlike most artists, Urs Fischer encourages us to wreck his latest exhibition piece.

Based on Auguste Rodin’s famous effigy of two lovers entwined, Fischer invites us to remould his plasticine replica of the statue. A continuation in many ways of the celebrated melting candle figures he’s exhibited before, the shift in materials gently changes focus from destruction to recreation, in every sense of the word.

This playful neo-dada subversion is what we’ve come to anticipate of Fischer, a New York artist who can fill a space with the absurd and hold the viewer’s focus for hours.

Housed in a classic white gallery space, the plasticine figure looks distinctly like a plaster cast, complete with rough matte texture and minute imperfections. The brilliant attention to detail helps play on our expectations, deliciously subverting how we interact with sculpture.

Visitors are encouraged to play and remould the figures, and surprisingly the responses are more witty than destructive. The addition of a cigarette and lank strands of hair is the childish humour one looks for from Fischer’s work, so it’s interesting to see the continuation of his style through the audience as a medium.

The feeling of naughty fun, however, does not extend to the hanging digital prints, which seem separate in both curation and theme. Featuring stills from the film Dracula, the silk print images have been digitally altered to include paint smears over the photos, a colourful addition intended to transcend the artifice of the original picture and inscribe it with new potential.

This motif is sympathetic to the main piece but feels significantly withdrawn from the plasticine model. The paint on the canvas is digital and feels staged, whereas the statue is real, uncontrolled, vulnerable to the will of its audience.

The implication of the artwork is that the power of the individual can reform classic ideals of art and beauty. As we watch the gradual destabilising transformation of a classical figurine, there is a significant shift in hierarchy that encourages us to question the importance of the original idea, and the hazy line between work of a master and amateur.

It’s a thoughtful concept and something one can watch progress over the days; a work devolving into a mass made by the masses, it is one of the few pieces of art to be seen on its last day on show.

★★★★★

Alexander Bawden

Urs Fischer: The Kiss is at Sadie Coles HQ from 1st February until 11th March 2017, for further information visit here. 

For further information about Urs Fischer visit here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Art

No Holds Barred: The Life and Art of Matthew Lanyon

James White
Read More

Shai Baitel announced as inaugural artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai

The editorial unit
Read More

The National Gallery online: Lockdown’s top 20 most viewed paintings

The editorial unit
Read More

Art 2021: London’s best virtual exhibitions from home

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Ten artistic depictions of the Christmas story through the ages

James White
Read More

Five gifts for art lovers this Christmas

Emma-Jane Betts
Read More

Five alternative art exhibitions for Christmas 2020

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Sensing the Unseen: Step into Gossaert’s Adoration at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

Ben Uri Gallery and Museum: The evolution of a force for good

James White
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Exhibition and art

Alexander Bawden

Urs Fischer: The Kiss at Sadie Coles HQ

★★★★★

Dates

1st February 2017 - 11th March 2017

Links & directions

TwitterWebsiteMap

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Smith & Burrows – Only Smith & Burrows Is Good Enough
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Creation Stories
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Detroit Stories – Alice Cooper
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Gatsby at Cadogan Hall: An interview with Jodie Steele and Ross William Wild
    Theatre
  • Wrong Turn
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • My Wonderful Wanda
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Foster Boy
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Your Honor
    ★★★★★
    other
  • Maximo Park – Nature Always Wins
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The most important inventions of the 21st century
    Tech & Sport
  • My Favourite War
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Typical at Soho Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Detroit Stories – Alice Cooper
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Minari
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • West End Musical Drive In Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

The Glass Menagerie at the Duke of York’s Theatre | Theatre review
 Salomé at Hoxton Hall | Theatre review