Urs Fischer: YES and LA DUST

In April 2013, Urs Fischer opened one of the most radical exhibitions ever presented in a museum. He arranged for tons of modeling clay to be delivered to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, installed a restaurant kitchen and a grand piano, and invited anyone who wanted to participate to sculpt the clay. Over 2,500 people created a staggering array of figures and forms. Fischer selected the most intriguing sculptures to cast in bronze. Fischer’s exhibition was one of the most impactful projects presented during Jeffrey Deitch’s tenure as MOCA Director. Now, thirteen years later, nineteen of these bronzes will be presented in Deitch’s 925 N. Orange Drive gallery. With a few exceptions, all of the exhibited sculptures were created by Fischer himself with his studio team. Visitors to the gallery will encounter a forest of figures and surreal structures. Many are like dream images, created with a directness and a strength of hand that is opposed to the slickness of academic sculpture. Each of the figures has a personality and seems to have an accompanying story. Fischer has also created a group of new smaller sculptures to complement the large bronzes. In Deitch’s nearby gallery at the corner of N. Orange Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, Fischer will be showing his new _LA Dust Paintings_. This series also references an earlier exhibition that Deitch presented at MOCA, _The Painting Factory_, in 2012. Works from the original series of _Dust Paintings_ from 2007-10 were installed at the entrance to the museum’s main exhibition gallery. Fischer had created only a small number of _Dust Paintings_ and decided to revisit the concept with this new body of work. The paintings are hand painted on metal panels, some with scans of dust salvaged from his Los Angeles studio floor. They are reflective, evoking the colors of the sky. The exhibition will be installed in a diagonal configuration representing day and night. Fischer sees the dust as mesoscopic, representing an intermediate state between the microscopic and the macroscopic of everyday visibility. Urs Fischer is one of the rare artists equally accomplished in painting and sculpture. In addition to _LA Dust_, Deitch’s Santa Monica Boulevard gallery will include Urs Fischer’s takeover of the bookstore. The space will be animated by a group of shadow lamps. The store will also feature a selection of books and items of clothing that Fischer produces in his studio. Urs Fischer, born Zurich 1973, has been living in Los Angeles part time and now full time since 2001. His remarkable exhibition of choreographed robot chairs, _Play_, was presented at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles in 2019. The _Yes_ sculptures were shown at the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco in 2017 and were documented in his book on the project, published in 2015. The _LA Dust_ paintings are presented in collaboration with Gagosian.