David Weiss: Works, 1968-1979

David Weiss (1946-2012) was world-renowned for his sculptural,
photographic and video work, made as Fischli/Weiss in collaboration with
Peter Fischli beginning in 1979. This exhibition focuses on the
lesser-known solo career of David Weiss, made prior to his ongoing
collaboration, and is comprised of an exceptional group of works on
paper from 1968-1979, previously exhibited at the Bündner
Kunstmuseum in Chur, Switzerland in Spring 2014. David Weiss: Works, 1968-1979 at
Swiss Institute will also include additional, never-before-seen
material from the artist's archive that provides unprecedented insight
into his formative years.

Though set aside and virtually unknown to the public for over 30 years,
in the months before his death in 2012, Weiss began to organize his
notebooks, sketchbooks, and early works on paper, culminating in this
exhibition and the posthumous publication of Nine Books 1973-1979 by
Edition Patrick Frey. Weiss wrote: “At first we were part of a small
Bohemian scene. In 1968 we suddenly were part of a movement that
included larger groups of society. I felt I was part of it, I became
committed, I read a great deal, stayed awake and wanted to see life.”
His embrace of the rapid political and cultural shifts observed both in
Zürich and through his extensive travels to the United States is
reflected back in the incisive references and trenchant aesthetic of the
exhibition.

The rarely seen works gathered at Swiss Institute conjure up cartoonish
imagery, abstract compositions and cinematic cityscapes, signaling some
of the subsequent artistic innovations of Fischli/Weiss’s celebrated
oeuvre, which will be shown in a major retrospective at the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum in Spring 2016. A unique occasion to explore the
genesis of the prolific and irreverent vocabulary of one of contemporary
art's most influential figures, this exhibition further presents key
elements of an artistic legacy that appear as fresh today as they did
when first exhibited.