Urs Fischer has created a giant bust of Katy Perry and wants you to destroy it

Swiss artist Urs Fisher is well known for his subversive, often slightly surreal sculptures, for instance earlier this year he cast a large-scale replica of Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss, in white Plasticine which was exhibited at Sadie Coles HQ. Visitors were invited to intervene with the sculpture, moulding and morphing the plasticine over the course of the show. For his latest piece, the New York-based artist has turned to a more contemporary muse, creating a giant bust of pop star, Katy Perry.

Clearly a fan of Urs’ replica of the impressionist sculpture, the singer approached the artist to create a model of the cover of her album Witness, released back in June. For this collaboration, entitled Bliss, the duo are inviting participation once again. Visitors to the space are asked to pull away the white surface of the pop star’s head and shoulders, to reveal modelling clay in a rainbow of colours. The sculpture’s innards can then be moulded onto the bare walls of the disused space at 39 Spring Street in New York’s Soho, where the work is currently on show. Slowly but surely, the giant Katy Perry will become more and more unrecognisable, filling the room with the colourful evidence of every visitor’s presence.

This kind of participatory art provides a means to break conventional gallery rules and practices, Urs told Art in America following a show at the Gagosian in 2014: “It was out of control, not controlled like in the studio, where you might overthink things,” he explains, adding that, “it’s about making things, in the broadest possible way."

Bliss is on view at 39 Spring Street until 31 December and is open 10am-8pm every day.