In 1998, Fischli and Weiss became interested in a subject central to the history of photography: flowers. The photographs’ tight framing recalls the compositions of their predecessors’ paintings. Through a superposition technique of two or three images, the artists’ photographs of flowers, and of mushrooms, express a feeling of strangeness. The ordinary perception of the subject is multiplied through distinct layers to offer the observer an off-kilter, sometimes dreamlike vision.

Thwarting traditional treatment by proposing an amazing portrait is thus how the apparent familiarity of the subject cedes its place to a gentle, innovative approach. Motifs are often immobilised in close-up, the rigorousness and frontal nature of their combination counterbalance the artistic taboo established by the representation of the floral motif, without however denying the fascination that the vegetal world continues to exercise in photographic practice.