NEW YORK — We profiled the sculptures of Erwin Wurm before on CFile. The most instructive article for his work is our writeup of Grammaire Wittgensteinienne de la Culture Physique in Paris. There, you can see Wurm’s process as he creates misshapen, malformed sculptures; things that start as common, recognizable objects but are transformed through Wurm’s interventions.
The artist can’t be accused of violence as he warps these objects, the same way you can’t accuse a tree falling on your house of violence. There’s no aggression here and Wurm always stops short of annihilation.
Erwin Wurm, Snake, 2016, bronze with black patinia, 13.78 x 80.71 x 64.96 inches. Images from Designboom.
He continued that theme with new works on exhibition at Frieze Fair, New York with Lehmann Maupin Gallery. The fantastic series of images we have come from Designboom. Instead of architecture, Wurm sits, crushes and even drives across representations of items you might find around the home (in some people’s homes, anyway). A gun is scarred by a tire tread. A cabinet and a dresser also were transformed through Wurm’s blows.
The sculptures were cast in bronze and displayed alongside pictures of One-Minute-Sculptures, a performance experiment in which Wurm invited visitors to perform short, one minute works at the artist’s direction.
Sculpture by Erwin Wurm at Frieze, 2016.
Erwin Wurm, Muddy Earth, 2016, bronze, 35.43 x 78.74 x 31.5 inches
Erwin Wurm (born 1954) is an artist who lives and works in Vienna, according to his biography at Frieze. He is represented by Gallery Krinzinger, Vienna; Gallery Anne de Villepoix, Paris, and Gallery Ars Futura, Zurich. Recent solo shows include: ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; ‘European Dream’, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Col San Angel, Mexico City; ‘Fat Survival – Handlungsformen der Skulptur’, Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; ‘Erwin Wurm’, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris; ‘Fat car’, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; ‘Erwin Wurm’, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, and ‘Sculptures with embarrassment’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma, StudioK, Helsinki.
Do you love or loathe these works of (not exactly) contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
Works by Erwin Wurm.
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