Artwork: Erwin Wurm, Untitled (Verschnittskulptur 2), 2016
Location: Rond-point Schuman, Luxembourg
Dates: From October 31 to December 15, 2019
‘In the end, art deals with the difficulty in coping with life - be it by means of a philosophy or a nutritional diet.’—Erwin Wurm
As part of this year’s Luxembourg Art Week, a public artwork by the internationally acclaimed Austrian artist Erwin Wurm (b. 1954) will be on display on Rond-Point Schuman until mid-December. Derived from a series of small-scale bronze sculptures exploring the human body through fragments or cut-ups [Verschnitte], this monumental installation captures the moment when movement freezes into a static pose. A reflection on the performativity of sculpture, Wurm’s three-dimensional collage takes up classical tropes such as the contrapposto, which are revisited and subverted by the tacky pink and white finish.
Wurm came to prominence in the 1990s with his One-Minute Sculptures, in which he invited visitors to become sculptures themselves by following his written or visual instructions. Spanning performance, video, photography, drawing and classical sculpture, his complex and often comical work pokes fun at consumer culture and familiar status symbols such as houses and cars. His visual vocabulary is direct and often deceitfully simple, reaching out to varied audiences yet always retaining a cutting and critical edge. His works can be found in the world’s major museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Museum Ludwig in Cologne. He lives and works in Vienna and in Limberg/Lower Austria.
