Erwin Wurm was born in 1954 in Bruck and der Mur, Austria. He lives and works in Vienna and Limberg. He completed a degree in Art History, German Language and Literary Studies at the University of Graz (1977) and in Design Theory at the University of Applied Arts and Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1982).
He attracted international attention with his One minute sculptures series, which began in 1996/97. Driven by the art/life relationship, he explores the idea of the human body as sculpture and vice versa to promote mutual reversibilities between subject and object, using sculpture, photography and performance. If the viewer appears objectified, becoming sculpture in the interaction with objects, it is sculpture itself that becomes anthropomorphised when ordinary consumer goods acquire an obese quality or human limbs. In Wurm's disconcerting and humorous work, one senses the effects of attraction and dependence that define our attachment to everyday objects. Wurm has participated in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2005); Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007); Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow (2013); Indianapolis Museum of Art (2015); The Albertina Museum, Vienna; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; Kunstmuseum Luzern (2018); Vancouver Art Gallery; K11 Musea, Hong Kong; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Marseille (2019); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2020); Museum Hartberg (2021) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2022). Group shows include The Love of Things, Kunsthalle Münster (2013); Moving Parts: Time and Motion in Contemporary Art, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2014); Performing for the Camera, Tate Modern, London (2016); Objects of Wonder - from Pedestal to Interaction, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum (2019); Moment. Monument: Aspects of Contemporary Sculpture, Kunst Museum Winterthur; So wie wir sind 2.0, Weserburg, Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen (2020) and Diversity United. Contemporary European Art. Berlin. Moscow. Paris, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Tempelhof Airport, Berlin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021), among others. He represented Austria at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).
His work is represented in a wide range of international museums, including: Albertina, Vienna; Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthaus Zürich; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; MoMA, New York; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern, London and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Sofia Nunes
