The Performative Sculptures result from a layered process. In a first instance, Erwin Wurm formed clay models in shapes of everyday objects, furnitures, architectures that can vary in size. Then, the artist performed actions on the clay model—punching, kicking, hitting them with his elbows or crushing them with his own body weight by lying or sitting on them—leaving his physical imprint on the form.
Finally, the artwork was casted into bronze, aluminium or acrylic resin, taking the materiality to the final work. What becomes visible is a “de-form-ation”—the properties previously inherent in the object have dissolved or mutated. A tension is created between the representation of an everyday object, its paradoxal deformation by the artist’s own body and the materiality of the work itself.