Three gherkin stumps are looking at a pile of carpets, while a dealer advises them. (Actually, they’re not carpets but slices of Mortadella and Lyon sausage, and the dealer is a piece of radish.) Is this a snapshot taken by a drunk looking at the remains of a smorgasbord at four in the morning? No, it’s Peter Fischli and David Weiss in 1979, staging and photographing miniature incidents for Wurstserie (Sausage Series). Just what kind of artistic partnership is this? Who comes up with this kind of mind-expanding silliness? A 30-minute film from 1981 provides something of an answer: it’s a rat and a bear. Shot on 8mm blown up to 16mm, Der Geringste Widerstand (The Least Resistance) features the two Swiss artists dressed in furry brown rat and panda bear costume roaming around a Los Angeles reminiscent of a third-rate buddy-cop flick. Meeting on a bridge over a busy motorway, they discuss the latest developments in the art world: ‘Any work?’ ‘No, but some money.’
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