Erwin Wurm

Erwin Wurm was born in 1954 in Bruck an der Mur, Austria. He initially studied art education before turning to sculpture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Since the 1990s, he has been consistently pursuing an expanded concept of sculpture. Wurm has redefined the boundaries of what sculpture can be like few other artists of his generation. He rose to international prominence with his “One Minute Sculptures,” in which everyday objects and human bodies are brought into absurd, sometimes grotesque constellations for fleeting moments. These ephemeral situations, captured photographically, are where seriousness and irony, concept and corporeality merge. Equally iconic are his “Fat Cars”: exaggerated, corpulent vehicles that blur the line between comedy and critique. Wurm works in series, exploring variation, repetition, and exaggeration with a keen sensitivity to social absurdities and an aesthetics of the everyday that frequently slips into the surreal. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Venice Biennale, where he represented Austria in 2017. His works are held in numerous important public and private collections around the world.