On Sunday, October 23rd, artist Peter Fischli participated in a lecture and conversation in response to the exhibition Around the Corner: 7 Photographs by Günther Förg and 1 by Helmut Newton at the Bauhaus Foundation, Tel Aviv.

The lecture recounted Fischli’s experience growing up in a modernist house designed by his father Hans Fischli, a Bauhaus trained artist and architect. Exploring his relationship to the Bauhaus, Fischli reflected on his upbringing in a home suffused by the spirit of the school and its lasting influence on his own artistic practice. Though raised within and influenced by modernism, much of Fischli’s work has been motivated by a sense of scepticism concerning the authority of the modernist grid and its restrictive legacy, inquiries that have led to his work being more commonly associated with postmodernism.

The artist’s talk and residency were supported by Outset Contemporary Art Fund on the occasion of the opening of Around the Corner: 7 Photographs by Günther Förg and 1 by Helmut Newton, organised with the generous support of Christie’s.

Peter Fischli (b.1952) is a Swiss artist whose work has examined questions of aesthetics as part of a cultural critique, with great humour, sensitivity, and insight. Engaged in a collaborative practice with David Weiss (1946-2012) from 1979 to 2012, Fischli created works in a variety of media, combining, rearranging, or otherwise manipulating daily experiences and common objects into something new and unexpected. Since Weiss’ passing, Fischli has ventured into a solo career, developing some aspects of the duo’s artistic vocabulary and otherwise redefining his work under new terms. The artist has since had solo exhibitions in leading galleries such as House of Gaga, Mexico City (2019), Sprüth Magers, London (2021), and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2021-2022) in addition to presentations in major museums, notably a large-scale solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2020. More recently, Fischli has also conceived and organised exhibitions, having been invited to curate MoMA’s Artist’s Choice in 2018 and Fondazione Prada’s Stop Painting exhibition in Venice in 2021.

‍

‍

‍

On Tuesday,  February 12th, renowned curator and critic, Francesco Bonami, discussed his provocative new book, L’opera d’Arte all’Epoca della sua Riproducibilita’ Sociale (e che vor dì?) at the Bauhaus Foundation, Tel Aviv. In his new book Bonami provides an insider’s view on the ramifications of making, exhibiting and consuming art in a reality where social media is inevitably first at the scene. 

Bonami is one of the most pronounced curators of the international contemporary art scene today. Previously the editor of Flash Art Magazine, curator of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, curator of the 50th edition of the Venice Biennial and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. His writing and exhibitions engage with issues of contemporaneity and the crossing between popular culture and so-called ‘high-art’. Bonami published numerous books on art and culture, among the most notable are his monographic studies of Cindy Sherman (Mondadori/Electa, 2012), Maurizio Cattelan Les presses du reel, 2013), Gabriele Basilico (Phaidon, 2001), and Rudolf Stingel (Yale University Press, 2007), and his recent contemplative account of contemporary art Lo potevo fare anch'io. Perché l'arte contemporanea è davvero arte (Mondadori, 2017).