24 March – 20 August 2017
Exhibition curateb by Günther Holler-Schuster
“On the right knee of a stone reclining person by Fritz Wotruba lies an extra sausage roll with pickles.” What do you see in your mind’s eye when you hear this descriptive sentence? The sculpture begins to exist in your imagination.
An exhibition by Erwin Wurm (*1954 in Bruck an der Mur) at the Kunsthaus Graz does not mean retrospectively showing the work of this most renowned Austrian contemporary artist. Rather, in this context, the building itself will take on the role of a generator and be an active part of the event.
In Wurm's work, essential lines of development of sculpture in the 20th and 21st centuries can still be seen today—from the object to the action and further to the creation of images, in the knowledge of an increasing mediatization of the world. Humans, who were initially eliminated from many artistic works, also return—the anthropomorphic comes into play again through the performative. Presence and absence are questions that run through Wurm's work, with absences (of objects and people) stimulating the power of the imagination.
The exhibition takes its starting point from the open architectural structure of the Kunsthaus. Elements of the performative, participatory and sculptural setting are brought into relationship with one another and with the house. Both spatial and temporal structures begin to potentially dissolve and change the exhibition. The satirical power in Wurm's works is great, which often creates an enjoyable approach to his works. Even though it may be a perfectly placed trap, for many it allows a quick start to the work. However, the complexity and complexity of the formal power of Erwin Wurm's works is in the foreground in this exhibition.
Wurm also follows a similar approach in his work Word Sculptures. The pedestals in the exhibition space where one would expect sculptures are either occupied by people or empty. Anyone who approaches the people receives the verbal description of the sculpture that could be seen in their place: “Smell block moves through the room with a person”, “Football-sized lump of clay on light blue car roof”, “Walking over a bed and sinking in like in the snow and leave a trace”, “Doubt lies on hope, hope breathes out”.
The language Wurm uses lies somewhere between soberly described material information and poetry. Another subtlety lies in the fact that the dematerialization of the sculpture leads to the text, while the text in turn deals with the dissolved material. Unlike the One Minute Sculptures, for which Erwin Wurm asks visitors to remain in seemingly absurd positions for a minute, sculpture here cannot be experienced through physical experience, but is created solely through the imagination of the viewer. An artist's book is being published for this project under the title Take a Deep Breath and Hold Your Breath, which includes 40 imagined sculptures.
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PDF DOWNLOAD / Exhibition catalogue
