CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/23/2014

Peter Fischli David Weiss

More than 500 of Peter Fischli and David Weiss' hand-carved and painted polyurethane replicas of everyday objects are featured in the Glenstone collection's 2011/2013 installation, "The Objects for Glenstone," reproduced in the wonderful new survey Peter Fischli David Weiss. In the book, which comes wrapped in a glossy, fold-out poster jacket, Tate Modern curator Mark Godfrey writes, "The carved polyurethane objects and black rubber sculptures bring Duchamp's 'readymades' to mind, but whereas Duchamp put into crisis the relationship between use value (a bottle rack can be used to dry bottles) and exchange value (as art, the bottle rack has a different value), Fischli and Weiss created objects whose handmade nature and uselessness is at the core of their identity, even if they are based on preexisting things. Duchamp's 'readymades' have the possibility of migrating back into the real world (one could use the shovel to shift snow), but Fischli and Weiss's objects would crumble or break if put to work. 'Freed from the slavery of their utility,' without purpose, they feel emptied out, but they can now become objects of speculation or affection."