Originally a sculptor, he makes drawings, photographs and videos inspired by our relation with everyday objects, and twisting their uses.
Originally a sculptor, Erwin Wurm makes drawings, photographs
and videos inspired by our relation with everyday objects, and
twisting their uses.
Each piece is an autonomous narrative fragment articulated
around a body (sometimes the artist’s) and an architectural
feature. These are presented in a confined space that viewers
can enter, thus giving the piece a new context and shaping time
and space in his or her own way.
"Like a number of other artists in the 1990s who returned to the
spirit of Fluxus, Dada and other irreverent tendencies of modern
art, Wurm belongs to the tendency that has brought the artist
figure down from its pedestal as guide of humanity, above the
secular world and its vicissitudes. For while he seems to delight
in representing his models as perfect antiheroes, nor does he
forget to apply the rules to himself. Many of his recent works
show him in acrobatic positions, gesticulating, fighting against
this or that recalcitrant object, often falling, like a pathetic puppet
floating weightlessly or as a (willing) victim suffering at the hands
of a decidedly cruel everyday reality."
From a text by Élisabeth Wetterwald in le journal du Cnp, February 2002, an
abridged version of her Erwin Wurm l’art du soupçon, Parachute, January
2002.
Côté jardin / Erwin Wurm
Since December 2001, in coproduction with the Patronage
Division of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, the Centre
national de la photographie has been presenting a series of
artists’ projects produced on tarpaulins to be hung over the Cnp’s
garden railings at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, overlooking
Avenue Friedland, Paris.
The series of images by Erwin Wurm is a selection of ten views
from the video entitled 59 Positions (1992).
In this video we see people hidden in pullovers and standing
stock still in a series postures, which change every 20 seconds.
Each position has a sculptural quality which is sometimes droll
but nevertheless exudes a sense of oppressiveness.
Centre national de la photographie
Hotel Salomon de Rothschild 11, Rue Berryer - 75008 Paris
Opening times: daily (except Tuesdays) from 12.00 to 19.00 Closed 1 May and 25 December