Past Exhibitions

The Way Things Go is the masterwork of the Swiss collaborative team Peter Fischli (b. Zürich, 1952) and David Weiss (b. Zürich,1946). In this 30-minute film their ongoing attempts to find the extraordinary and the magical within the commonplace and boring reach perfection. In a large warehouse space they built a structure approximately 100 feet long that was designed to self-destruct in ways both slow and quick, but always worth watching.  Attempting to build sculptures a bit beyond their technical skills, they found themselves strangely enthralled when they collapsed, and decided there must be a way to harness the glorious energies of their failed experiments toward the goals of their art. This is the result.

The film begins with an oversized plastic bag spinning. As the rope holding it relaxes, the bag hits a tire that rolls into a precariously balanced teetering structure. The tire upsets it, causing the structure’s counter-weight to swing over and around, knocking back into the tire and sending it on its way with renewed force, and so it goes. Fischli and Weiss invented so many ways to keep the action going that watching them can be hysterically exhausting. Gravity, chemistry, liquid dynamics, helium balloons, fire, and various gas propulsion devices speed up the action, and occasional sticky and powdery substances slow it down. Liquids pour and flow, their weight setting off the next cascade. Alternately, the liquids are flammable, and set off fiery reactions.

Like a great modern symphony, unexpected timing and startling juxtapositions are at the esthetic core of The Way Things Go. The quickest of the physical and chemical reactions are interspersed with ones that are lugubriously elongated, and visual moments of industrial dreariness occur moments before ones of magical beauty in which sparks and flames enliven Fischli and Weiss’s structure and speed the action.

About the Artists

Peter Fischli was born in 1952, in Zürich, Switzerland.
David Weiss was born in 1946, in Zürich, Switzerland.
They live and work in Switzerland.    

Their exhibitions include Sicht Bare Welt (Visible World), Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, Japan (2001); ARC 1999, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France(1999);  Freie Sicht aufs Mittelmeer, Junge Scheizer Kunt mit Gasten und Galtmahl, Kunsthaus Zurich (1998); Eight People from Europe, Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan (1998); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea (1997), Documenta X, Kassel, Germany (1997); and Peter Fischli and David Weiss: In a Restless World, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA (1996). 


The Media Test Wall, an ongoing series of contemporary video, is located on the ground floor of the Whitaker Building (21 Ames St., Bldg. 56) on the MIT campus.

Viewing Hours: Daily 24 hrs.