Μake us preferred on Google Swiss artist David Weiss takes center stage at Melas Martinos gallery in Athens with Neocolor, an exhibition of early drawings created between 1977 and 1979 that offers a rare look at the formative years of one of contemporary art’s most influential figures. The exhibition runs through September 12, 2026.
Featuring works produced shortly before Weiss began his lifelong artistic partnership with Peter Fischli, Neocolor highlights a pivotal moment in the artist’s development. The drawings reveal recurring themes, visual motifs, and a distinctive sense of humor that would later become defining elements of the internationally acclaimed Fischli/Weiss collaboration.
Named after Caran d’Ache’s Neocolor wax pastels, the series showcases a technique familiar from childhood art classes. Weiss first covered paper with brightly colored pastel, layered it with black paint, and then scratched into the dark surface using a sharp point. The process exposes the vibrant colors beneath, creating luminous lines and forms that emerge from the black background.
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The resulting drawings range from imagined landscapes and city scenes to enigmatic figures and surreal narratives. A cloaked woman returns the viewer’s gaze, crystalline creatures wander illuminated streets, musicians appear caught in their own rhythm, and swirling human figures struggle against invisible forces. Each composition functions as a self-contained world, demonstrating Weiss’s remarkable precision, fluid draftsmanship, and ability to transform simple marks into vivid visual storytelling.
The exhibition also underscores the central role drawing played throughout Weiss’s career. Beyond serving as a preparatory tool, drawing became a medium for comics, painting, and conceptual exploration. Its speed, immediacy, and openness would later inform landmark works created with Fischli, including Suddenly This Overview and the Rat and Bear series, where Weiss’s understated humor and philosophical approach came to define the duo’s artistic language.
Born in Zurich in 1946, David Weiss studied at the Zurich and Basel schools of fine arts before meeting Peter Fischli in 1979. Together they formed Fischli/Weiss, one of the most celebrated artist duos of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Their work was featured in multiple editions of the Venice Biennale and major retrospectives at leading international museums, while Weiss’s work has continued to be presented in solo exhibitions worldwide following his death in 2012.
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