Urs Fischer

Urs Fischer (b. 1973) lives and works in New York, and is one of the most successful Swiss artists in the international arena. In 2009 Fischer's first solo show in the US opened at the New Museum in New York. His multifaceted oeuvre had previously already been presented at renowned institutions in Europe, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Hamburger Bahnhof. Fischer is an object-making and installation artist, as well as a painter and draftsman. Fischer's playful approach and ironic gestures with materials and techniques can be seen in White Swan, too. The smooth surface of this object, with its eye-catching beak, looks like wax or finely polished marble. And yet Fischer has cast this swan in bronze with the greatest technical precision and care. Are we dealing here (as so often in Fischer's work) with an artistic quotation? In many representations, swans-with their snow-white purity, their grace and elegance-embody humankind's eternal longing for harmonious togetherness. The swan stands as a symbol of purity and fidelity, in other words. Nevertheless, the artwork cannot be completely unlocked: it is allowed to retain something inherently enigmatic. Indeed, "fluidity" is what the artist likes.