All Photos By Gail

During my visit to Salon 94’s delightfully irreverent exhibition Shucks & Aww, one of the many stand out  pieces was : a pristine porcelain toilet bowl filled to the brim with bright, plastic fruit. Created by Swiss artist Urs Fischer, the work — simply titled Untitled (2015) — perfectly captures the exhibition’s mash-up of the raw, the refined, and the knowingly ridiculous.


Installation View

Fischer has long been celebrated for transforming everyday objects into surreal, often humorous sculptures, and this one hits all the right notes. The toilet, gleaming and familiar, is a ready-made avatar of the mundane; the fruit, glossy and artificial, is a stand-in for abundance, desire, and all the still-life traditions of art history. Combined, they create a visual punchline that’s equal parts Duchampian prank and contemporary commentary.

Is it a still life? A joke? A meditation on excess and decay? The answer is all of the above. By placing a symbol of nourishment inside an object associated with waste, Fischer collapses opposites —elevated and low, delicious and disgusting, fine art and bathroom fixture — into one strangely satisfying sculptural tableau. It’s a work that makes you laugh first, then think, then laugh again.

In an exhibition full of whimsy and conceptual twists, Untitled stands out as the perfect encapsulation of Fischer’s vision: mischievous, smart, and impossible to forget.