RAT AND BEAR. COURTESY MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY

Works by Peter Fischli and David Weiss occupy the three Matthew Marks spaces in Chelsea. At 522 West 22nd Street there's vitrines and vitrines displaying of international advertisements, ranging in date and taste. It's a test of exhibition strategies (nothing's on the wall) and the way people process imagery as significant, specific, and of a time. Across the street at 523 there's banal objects cast in rubber or clay, and often out of scale. The work in Fischli/Weiss's third exhibition space, at 526 West 22nd Street, pushes the anthropomorphism of their cast sculpture and the kitsch-categorization of their collected images. Comprising the installation are the artists' recurring stand-ins, Rat and Bear, which appear sleeping. They're hooked up with internal respiratory machines so they move and wheeze slightly.

Visitors to the Matthew Marks annex on 22nd Street will have noted the well-dressed young man who works there day in and day out, ostensibly guarding the small space. He's quiet and he visitors' answers questions, and he somehow seems more sophisticated than a regular guard, although his responsibilities are considerably smaller (it's a room slightly larger than closet-sized). A strange sensation pervades the room, that both sculpture and guard alike are grander than their small prison cell. Rat and Bear, at least, take respite in sleep; the guard has less flexibility. Luckily when I entered the room other visitor to the show, a young woman asked the guard my burning, embarassing question—"What are you doing here?" Leaving me the far more pertinent, existential question, "What are we doing here?"


Fichli/Weiss is on view at Matthew Marks through January 16.