Fischli & Weiss: Büsi (Kitty) & Hunde (Dogs)

Peter Fischli and David Weiss worked collaboratively for 33 years until Weiss’s death in 2012. The Swiss artist duo is best known for elevating ordinary subject matter into the realm of high art. The two videos Büsi (Kitty) and Hunde (Dogs) both portray domesticated animals engaged in everyday behavior: a kitty drinking milk out of a dish on the floor and two dogs alertly looking through a wooden fence. Steering the viewer’s attention to something as banal as the slurping of a cat and the gazing of two dogs, Fischli and Weiss not only ennoble the depicted animals, they also guide our attention to the often-overlooked beauty and humor that can be found in the smallest of things.