The Membrane, 2000, mixed media

Crafting every detail using glass, mirrors, silicone and projections, Urs Fischer plays with the borderline between ugliness and beauty as process and finished object at the same time, revelling in the potential of objects and materials to create complex meanings and sensations. His work is an attack on the purity of thought, and an embrace of non-elitist cultural hierarchies, throwing the principles of artistic order to the winds. "There are two visual extremes which are most frequently represented: extreme ugliness and extreme beauty. The work I make lies in between the two, so that the viewer has to engage more keenly. This area between the extremes is full of contradiction and emotion about our daily struggle with life - you give up drinking, go on a diet, feel good about yourself, then trash the whole thing the next day, constantly swinging from one extreme to another. "