Artists

Erwin Wurm

Press release

Erwin Wurm (* 1954 Bruck/Mur) is one of today’s most successful and best-known international contemporary artists. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, ALBERTINA MODERN presents the first comprehensive retrospective of his multifaceted work which invites us in sculptures, drawings and instructions, videos and photographs to contemplate the paradoxes and absurdities of our world.

In his artistic method, Erwin Wurm examines the concept of the sculptural, introducing it as a yardstick by which to gauge our contemporary world. The boundaries between traditional concepts of sculpture, performance, photography or painting are called into question, just as statics and movement within a work of art are redefined. Wurm overturns the habitual perception of the reality that surrounds us and, with his artworks, opens up opportunities to raise new perspectives and questions: What happens if I disregard gravity, what if houses start melting away or are squashed by performative interventions? How do bodies and spaces behave when the absurd and paradoxical has room to exist in them? How can you, in the One Minute Sculptures, become part of a work of art for a brief moment, and how does that feel? As the artist himself explains, it is always about the concept of the sculptural in relation to the social. For example, a pickle may well be declared to be a self-portrait, or a lavish luxury convertible like the Fat Car as a symbol of greed, excess, and commodity fetishism in our society. On the other hand, the Narrow House conceptually reflects the narrowness of bourgeois thinking and action and the restrictiveness of social norms, whether through religion, convention, or faux pathos. Relating to this, the show for the first time presents rural School, which stands for restrictive and now outdated ideas and is another symbol of restrictive and judgmental models of thought.