Erwin Wurm
dal 16/10/2009 al 30/1/2010
Segnalato da
16/10/2009
Erwin Wurm
Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich
His diverse approaches to ''sculpture'' will be shown, with an equal emphasis on all the many different means of expression that he has developed in particular over the past seven years. These include not only sculptures, but also texts, single sentences and statements that express populist thought in provocative ways. Wurm sees these statements as a form of ''social sculpture'' that embodies intrinsic contradictions.
curated by Helmut Friedel
Whenever Erwin Wurm dips into the infinite reserves of the world of real objects, and turns one of them into a sculpture, then the object he has chosen is transformed into something new, with its own particular significance. Cars, potatoes, cucumbers and items of clothing are just some of the objects from the real world that he has “treated” in his sculptures, turning their meaning and thereby producing new images.
The idea of performance plays a key role in this process. Wurm transforms what seem to be banal situations, gestures and actions into “one-minute sculptures” and expressions of “frozen time”. Simply by freezing a gesture for just one minute, Wurm reveals levels of meaning that are not apparent at “normal” speed. Photographs help to capture sculptural situations and to make still images of them. This can also be done in film: a man stands motionless from sunrise to sunset, and this period of time captured on film transforms him into a sculpture that is more firmly fixed and more constant than even the sun that moves across the sky during the day. Wurm’s penetrating and ironic approach turns cars into “weird” objects that curve and twist, lean up against walls, or, as he shows on film, drive up the walls of buildings and turn the horizontal and the vertical on their heads.
Our Erwin Wurm exhibition in the Kunstbau at the Lenbachhaus will richly illustrate the artist’s work. His diverse approaches to “sculpture” will be shown, with an equal emphasis on all the many different means of expression that he has developed in particular over the past seven years. These include not only sculptures, but also texts, single sentences and statements that express populist thought in provocative ways. Wurm sees these statements as a form of “social sculpture” that embodies intrinsic contradictions. The catalogue will therefore include a text in which Wurm answers the questions posed with questions of his own.
A richly illustrated catalogue, 336 pages, with essays by Helmut Friedel, Stephan Berg, Franz Schuh and others, will be published by Dumont Verlag. After the presentation in the Lenbachhaus Kunstbau in Munich, the exhibition will also be shown in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Museum Sammlung Essl in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, in Beijing, and other venues.
Curator: Helmut Friedel, director of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich
Image: Taipei, Outdoor, 2000, c-print, 159,1x126,5cm
Foto: Erwin Wurm / © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau
Luisenstrasse 33 - Munich
Opening hours (17th october 2009 - 31th january 2010)
Tue – Sun, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.,
25th december 2009 and 1st january 2010, 12 - 6 p.m.
Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve closed
Admission prices (includes Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau)
Regular: € 5, Reduced: € 2,50, Family ticket: € 7,50
No group reduction