July 2011
94.160
Erwin Wurm
Liquid Frontiers
As an artist, Elfie Semotan has created portraits of many of her artist colleagues. For the Wien Mitte art campaign and her colleague Erwin Wurm, she once again took a role in front of the lens, namely as a goddess who has apparently fallen from heaven only to land on the newly completed roof of Wien Mitte - around 35 metres above the ground. With its numerous references to crime cinema or science fiction and its simultaneous portrayal of themselves and of Wien Mitte, this work is the result of the first co-production of the two artists.
The Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm creates sculptures out of social situations and vice versa. With a fitting lack of respect and little hesitation about engaging with everyday and banal situations, Wurm knocks sculpture off its pedestal and drags it into real life. His “One Minute Sculptures” then freeze this real life for a moment in which those grotesque, absurd and bizarre aspects of life which are usually hidden from view can be “captured”. These “One Minute Sculptures” have become the artist’s highly successful international trademark – a success shown by, among other things, the number of imitations. This highly personal and highly flexible understanding of sculpture has made it possible for Erwin Wurm to make inroads into such theoretically alien worlds as fashion and advertising, worlds in which he is able to employ his unmistakable signature without losing his essential sense of ironic distance.