Urs Fischer

a retrospective at Moca, Los Angeles text by JEFF RIAN   It is as if Shrek and Don Quixote engendered the cosmic esprit of Swiss artist Urs Fischer, born in 1973, exhibiting since the 1990s. For his massive, must-see retrospective at LA MOCA, Fischer rammed huge holes in walls, made countless figurative works in gray clay, huge and small, by himself and with 1,500 amateurs. He set plastic skeletons on furniture and a washing machine, built a dilapidated orange fairy-tale cabin, sculpted blue raindrops, hung huge mirrors, and collaged what he calls “problem paintings” with photographs and materials too varied to describe. So much of it is gray; yet all of it is as lively and provocative as a genius child artist, which of course can only exist in a genius child adult.