Wurm, Ervin: Think about Your Digestion – from the series One Minute Sculptures (2005)

pedestal, object, instruction, drawing
Donation of the Atelier Erwin Wurm, 2018

The extremely simple (or astonishingly banal) so-called “one-minute sculpture” invites the viewer to self-realization, while making Wurm’s thoughts on sculpture experiential and tangible: what makes something a sculpture, what determines the meaning and value of an artwork, what is the relationship between the physical appearance of a sculpture and its concept...? The artist expands the already broad boundaries of sculpture through his One Minute Sculptures, totalizing the possible forms of sculpture: “My videos, photos and books are all sculptures,” says the artist. He redefines the scope of the concept of sculpture, fundamentally questioning the expectations of the audience and attempting to reconfigure the temporal, social and interactive dimensions of sculpture. Most of Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures evoke funny situations, but are also challenging physical exercises. An important element of his work is the separation of authorship and realisation and then their reunion in the viewer: the visitor creates the work as an active participant and as a structural element of the living sculpture. In the pieces of One Minute Sculptures, the direct physical contact with the objects becomes an act of representation, and the sculpture is created as a requisite of a performative gesture, as a frozen situation.