The adventuresome and optimistic skeptic Peter Fischli was producing exciting concert posters and album covers when he met the laid-back and melancholy nerd and inventor David Weiss. That was back in 1979. The two artists from Zurich have been working together ever since. The hilarious photo essay Wurstserie (The Sausage Photographs) (1979) was their first collaboration. Bologna sausages are presented as cars involved in an accident, surrounded by gawking passersby in the form of cigarette butts. In another photo, the sausages are performing in a fashion show. In a third, cervelat sausages double as fire engines attempting to put out fires in burning shoebox houses. In yet another image, the artists use sausage slices as a rug display, with cocktail gherkins acting as shoppers and salespeople. Blankets and pillows simulate the Swiss Alps. These humorous photographs instantly made Fischli and Weiss audience favorites, which they’ve remained to this day. In the age of star cults, this popularity is a phenomenon. Not least because Fischli and Weiss remain true to their guarded Swiss roots, are rather camera shy, and provide neither interviews nor statements. They refuse to make any commentary about their work.
