Urs Fischer at MAZE Design, Basel

For the inaugural edition of MAZE Design, Basel, Salon 94 Design presents Shucks & Aww by Urs Fischer (b. 1973, Zurich)—his ambitious and playful leap over the line from art into design.

Fischer’s characteristically unpredictable and aesthetically omnivorous oeuvre—spanning sculpture, installation, painting, and photography—has long included semi-functional elements. Be it a minuscule object or monumental installation, furniture and the built environment, writ small and large, are long-standing features of his practice. Figuring as protagonists and supporting characters alike the facsimiles of a seats, mirrors, or lamps take the stage time and time again.

The ubiquitous Urs Fischer chair made its sly debut in the early ’90s as a sculptural solution to a functional problem, and thereafter this humble studio perch evolved from a conceptual novelty into a robust leitmotif. Over the last three decades, the chairs have multiplied into many sculpted variations: one acts as a human stand-in with a red balloon tied to its back. Some form a troupe dancers digitally choreographed into a rolling, mechanical ballet, while another appears as an architectural outdoor monument. And now a dog shelter? Oh no, it’s simply a chair. Don’t stand and look—take a seat and rest.

Fischer’s penchant for subverting expectation, embracing humor, and elevating the banal shines through in his approach to design; a lamp is not simply a lamp, nor a chair just a chair. Like his sculptures, Fischer’s functional objects come with rigorous abstract underpinnings: he designs with metaphor in mind, adeptly deploying the vast repertoire of materials and limitless imagination at his disposal.

Seating that appears at first glance to be an injection-molded IKEA product is actually bronze-cast, finished in enamel by hand. A tufted pink carpet turns out to be a nipple inscribed with erotica. A discarded pile of grey foam (the exact color of his iconic clay sculptures) has been stacked and carved into a sinkable lounge chair. Each piece is detailed and crafted to perfection, to the exacting standards of Swiss precision for which Fischer is known.

So follow the songbird—she is balanced atop a glowing glass egg, looking on serenely as we wander into the enchanted salon of Urs Fischer.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Press: [email protected].