The Sausage Series, created in 1979 by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, was one of the very first collaborations by this duo from Zurich. The ten photographs in this series reveal a very humorous use of domestic spaces.
By going into the oven, bed, freezer and bathtub, the two artists present a totally zany imaginary life in which sausages, along with other familiar objects and even detritus, take center stage. The passion for play, a true privilege of youth, is a fundamental component of Fischli and Weiss’s work, as is the use of the most common everyday objects. Quirky reconstructions replete with historical, cinematic and social references take the viewer on a strange journey.
At the Carpet Shop illustrates a family of pickles hungrily looking at merchandise consisting of various slices of ham, mortadella and other deli meats, arranged as if they were a variety of carpet models. From a bathroom shelf converted into a temporary catwalk, Fashion Show plunges the viewer into the ruthless world of fashion, here reinterpreted by five cervelats, dressed in clothes and hats that are more comical than avant-gardist. The models march past in single file, the mirror reflecting their amazing attire.
Since there are no boundaries, the private realm of the bed has a right to its own reconversion in the photograph entitled In the Mountains. The typically Swiss alpine landscape, complete with mountain lake, cable car and chalets, extends over pillows arranged like rocky mountains, right in the middle of a hilly expanse made by the ridges and folds of a sheet in the waking hour.
While Moonraker spreads its scenery between the white walls of a refrigerator, a very small-scale rocket prepares to launch in the viewer’s imagination, evoking a passing memory of the perilous adventures of agent 007 in the film of the same name. In a constant subversion of all hierarchical values, Fischli and Weiss play with the most common oppositions: work and leisure, the trivial and the sublime, or reality and fiction.
By going into the oven, bed, freezer and bathtub, the two artists present a totally zany imaginary life in which sausages, along with other familiar objects and even detritus, take center stage. The passion for play, a true privilege of youth, is a fundamental component of Fischli and Weiss’s work, as is the use of the most common everyday objects. Quirky reconstructions replete with historical, cinematic and social references take the viewer on a strange journey.
At the Carpet Shop illustrates a family of pickles hungrily looking at merchandise consisting of various slices of ham, mortadella and other deli meats, arranged as if they were a variety of carpet models. From a bathroom shelf converted into a temporary catwalk, Fashion Show plunges the viewer into the ruthless world of fashion, here reinterpreted by five cervelats, dressed in clothes and hats that are more comical than avant-gardist. The models march past in single file, the mirror reflecting their amazing attire.
Since there are no boundaries, the private realm of the bed has a right to its own reconversion in the photograph entitled In the Mountains. The typically Swiss alpine landscape, complete with mountain lake, cable car and chalets, extends over pillows arranged like rocky mountains, right in the middle of a hilly expanse made by the ridges and folds of a sheet in the waking hour.
While Moonraker spreads its scenery between the white walls of a refrigerator, a very small-scale rocket prepares to launch in the viewer’s imagination, evoking a passing memory of the perilous adventures of agent 007 in the film of the same name. In a constant subversion of all hierarchical values, Fischli and Weiss play with the most common oppositions: work and leisure, the trivial and the sublime, or reality and fiction.
