Urs Fischer (b. 1973) mines the potential of materials—from clay, steel, and paint to bread, dirt, and produce—to create works that disorient and bewilder. Through scale distortions, illusion, and the juxtaposition of common objects, his sculptures, paintings, photographs, and large-scale installations explore themes of perception and representation while maintaining a witty irreverence and biting humor.

When Fischer pairs objects or materials together to make his work, he questions what happens when two specific objects meet in an imagined space. In his hands, seemingly contrasting items form a special bond, oftentimes temporary, and they invite the audience to ponder not only the relationship but also the inevitable decay of all constructions. Fischer's unique contribution stems from his ability to infuse items with a life of their own, putting them on a pedestal to jostle our perspectives out from beneath the status quo.

Themes of absence and presence, as well as the processes of art production, saturate his work, in which Fischer makes use of tables, chairs, shadows, and light to explore distortion and anthropomorphism, sometimes assigning seemingly human-like traits and qualities to nonhuman objects.. Food is also a major element in Fischer’s work. Rotting, melting, and crumbling, and placed in juxtaposition with permanent materials like metal, bricks, and mortar, it serves as a memento mori, an object serving as a warning or reminder of death.

Fischer’s work has been acquired by numerous institutions such as the Burger Collection, FRAC- Provence- Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Fondation- Carmignac, Fondazione Morra, Kunstmuseum Basel, Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana (MASILugano), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, MOCA Grand Avenue, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Punta della Dogana- Francois Pinault Foundation, Rubell Family Collection, and the Vanhaerents Art Collection.