Oscar the Grouch

New York-based artist Urs Fischer (born 1973 in Zurich) has devised a surreal universe in which dust bunnies are magnified into landscapes and a lump of clay squeezed in the artist's fist becomes a towering monolith. In this catalogue for Fischer's solo exhibition at The Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, a cast aluminum grave pierces the ceiling and the exhibition space becomes an excavation site. A gallery wallpapered with trompe l'oeil reproductions of collector Peter Brant's living room features artworks from his extensive private collection. Wax likenesses of Brant have been set alight and slowly melt away, dissolving into puddles. With these audacious formal investigations of scale and material, Fischer has produced an off-kilter installation that disconcerts and entrances.