Together forever in rotting unity with Urs Fischer.

In the English language you compare apples and oranges, but basically any other language compares apples and pears. Which makes a little more sense if you ask me. Ok fair enough the Serbs compare grandmothers and toads but that makes even less sense... Anyway, in Urs’s hometown of Zurich they speak German. “Swiss-German” to be exact, but no-one besides the Swiss and the Germans can hear the difference. I’m sure Urs did some apple-pear comparing of his own in his lifetime.

For this “Untitled” piece in 2000 he screwed together half an apple and half a pear. Obviously it’s not like MoMA has a rotting apple and pear stored somewhere in the back. Whenever this piece is going on display, they probably sent some intern to Trader Joe’s to buy fresh fruit.

Some say this piece has something to do with a Greek myth. Story goes that humans once existed back to back. But at one point, jealous Zeus cleaved the happy pairs in two. Hephaestus, god of sculpture, offered to re-attach any two lovers in search of their missing halves. Apparently “not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need.” Apparently our “ancient need” is to find our other half. Back then, swiping left wasn’t an option so one could only hope Hephaestus was good at match-making!