David Weiss: Works, 1968–1979

Before Fischli/Weiss there was a decade of David Weiss working alone, filling notebooks and sheets of paper with drawings that stayed hidden for more than thirty years.

Published by the Swiss Institute with Karma in 2016, this compact hardcover gathers the works on paper Weiss made between 1968 and 1979: cartoon imagery, ethereal abstractions and electric cityscapes, together with previously unpublished writings. Edited by Karen Marta and Simon Castets, the book pairs intimate recollections from Weiss's friends Urs Lüthi and Hans Ulrich Obrist with an essay by curator Douglas Fogle tracing the influences on the early work, from Robert Walser to Bugs Bunny. It follows the exhibitions at the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur (2014) and Swiss Institute, New York (2014–15), made possible only because Weiss, in the months before his death, began organizing the notebooks and early drawings he had set aside when the collaboration began.

Weiss (1946–2012) joined Peter Fischli in 1979 to form Fischli/Weiss, the duo behind Der Lauf der Dinge and one of contemporary art's most inventive bodies of work, honored with a Guggenheim retrospective in 2016. This volume restores the solo artist behind the partnership, and it sits alongside the many Fischli & Weiss titles held in this library.