ART CITIES:Athens-David Weiss

David Weiss was a Swiss artist best known as one half of the influential duo Fischli/Weiss with Peter Fischli. Born in Zürich, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich and Basel, and was exposed early to minimalist and conceptual art in New York. His work combined sculpture, photography, film, and installation, often focusing on everyday objects and ironic, poetic interpretations of ordinary life.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Melas Martinos Archive

At Melas Martinos, the exhibition “Neocolor” shows drawings by David Weiss made between 1977 and 1979. The works feel both playful and ominous, small and vast at the same time. They were made just before Weiss began working with Peter Fischli and already show the same attention to everyday absurdity, fragile systems, and quiet poetry.

One drawing looks like a scratched map of stars and routes. It reads like a child’s diagram of colliding worlds, but a small key reveals it charts the Migration Period — the Goths, Huns and Vandals moving across Europe as the Roman Empire fell. History here is shown as movement and change rather than a fixed timeline.

The title “Neocolor” comes from the wax pastels Weiss used. He first covered the paper with bright wax, painted over it in black, then scraped away the paint with a sharp tool. Light and color appear by removing darkness — drawing through erasure. The method suggests memory resurfacing through damage.

Black in these works acts like an atmosphere: night streets, dreams, interiors and hallucinations. Figures hover between comic and sad — a cloaked woman staring out, a person with a visor, crystal-like creatures in glowing streets, a drum set playing on its own. Each piece feels like a small stage of strange, shifting scenes.

Weiss’s line work is direct and confident. His drawings read like thinking made visible, able to hold history, city life, humor and big ideas all at once. They aren’t just studies; they are finished, thoughtful works.

These drawings show the ideas that would later appear in Fischli/Weiss: dry humor, light philosophical touches, and a taste for contradiction. At the same time they keep a private, experimental feel — intimate worlds scratched into darkness where disaster and beauty sit side by side.

In one piece three figures look out from behind glass under the caption: “We gazed out, mesmerized, in awe of so much beauty.” It’s unclear whether they admire the world itself or its image. That uncertainty — between innocence and ruin, spectacle and intimacy — is central to “Neocolor”.

*Neocolor is a Swiss-made line of professional-grade wax pastels manufactured by the art brand Caran d’Ache. They look like thick, oversized crayons but have a rich, velvety texture, intense pigmentation, and can be used on surfaces like paper, wood, glass, and leather. There are two main types: Neocolor I (Water-Resistant): These are wax-based and repulse water. They are highly opaque, making them perfect for wax-resist techniques (painting watercolors over the crayon) and sgraffito (scraping through layers) and Neocolor II (Water-Soluble): These are water-soluble wax pastels. You can draw with them dry and then use a wet paintbrush to blend, dilute, and turn the pigment into a watercolor paint.

Photo:David Weiss, Untitled, 1978, Wax pastel on paper, 11.5 × 17.5 cm, Courtesy Melas Martinos

Info: Melas Martinos, Pandrossou 50, Athens, Greece, Duration: 26/5-12/9/2026, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://melasmartinos.com/