Peter Fischli and David Weiss

In their sixth exhibition at this gallery, the Swiss mavericks Peter Fischli and David Weiss revisit the period remembered best for their seminal film The Way Things Go, 1987, by way of a series of photographs (“Equilibres,” 1984–86) and a newly edited film (Making Things Go, 1984/2006). With its spectacular chain-reaction aesthetics, the 1987 work conveyed a sense of sculpture as a living thing—an energetic, Rube Goldbergian contraption that is always on the verge of veering off course and yet manages, in its own weirdly anthropomorphic fashion, to keep on. The delicately beautiful photographs on show here offer earlier still-life versions of that little-sculpture-that-could spirit. Humble, everyday objects form rinky-dink assemblages, photographed in color or in black-and-white: Masking-tape rolls barely balance on a tilted bottle; saws and a cleaning-fluid atomizer teeter on an upturned hammer. The real gem of this show, however, is the film, which brings the viewer behind the scenes of The Way Things Go. Reminiscent—in the best sense possible—of the harebrained stratagems leading up to a fourth-grade science fair, the film documents the near impossibility of making materials bend to artistic will. If the 1987 work depicted a kinesis whose fluidity seemed miraculous, then Making Things Go is riddled with choppy failure: A balloon pops rather than deflates; a bottle’s tilt stops just short of pouring liquid into a cup; one tire meanders off instead of connecting with another. All of this, surprisingly, makes for a riveting viewing experience. Concentrating on the artists’ attempts to manipulate the objects at hand, the film manages a rare feat: It introduces its spectator to the frequent frustrations and sporadic delights of an inventive and playful studio practice.