Peter Fischli & David Weiss / Plötzlich diese Übersicht

"In this small volume, the small, very hand-made-looking clay sculptures are reproduced in low-tech black-and-white and accompanied by the amusing descriptive captions with which they were originally exhibited. As Weiss has explained, ‘The intention was to accumulate various important and unimportant events in the history of mankind, and of the planet – moments in the fields of technology, fairy tales, civilization, film, sports, commerce, education, sex, biblical history, nature and entertainment.’ The scenes they selected include Herr and Frau Einstein shortly after the conception of their son, the genius Albert, and Dr. Albert Hoffman heading home on a bike in Basel after testing the LSD that he just synthesized. Other works in the series include everyday items such as a loaf of bread, a tea set and a pot – an early example of the artists’ fascination with the ordinary. A third category portrays what the artists refer to as Popular Opposites , such as work and play, theory and practice, high and low. According to Fischli, the viewer cannot simultaneously take all the sculptures or all the stories into account The title describes the opposite of what is actually the case: the confusion and the swamp and the simultaneity of these things." (from publisher’s website)