"Fat Car"

Erwin Wurm was born in Bruck an der Mur, Styria in 1954. He is one of Austria’s most important contemporary artists and among the most significant artists internationally, too. He attended both the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Applied Art in Vienna, the latter at which he taught as a professor of sculpture and multimedia up until 2010. Sculpture in the second half of the 20th century is marked by a blurring of boundaries between the individual genres and by a constant expansion of the term ‘sculpture’. Erwin Wurm has continued this development into the 21st century, taking new, unexpected turns. He casts doubt on the classic approaches to sculpture technique in a manner by turns innovative, humorous and yet profound. In this way, he brings into play interactive, social and time-related aspects, too. In the ‘One Minute Sculptures’, people pose with everyday objects and carry out certain actions, as directed by the artist that last one minute. Thus, the protagonists themselves become objets d’art for this period of time. In this context, we can speak of a completely new entrée into sculpture, which ‘in its radicality recalls the readymades of Marcel Duchamp’ (Stella Rollig).
By means of approaches that are continuously renewing, new perspectives are constantly opening up to Wurm that he explores in different work series. ‘Dust Sculptures’, ‘Clothes Sculptures’, ‘Abstract Sculptures’ and finally ‘Performative Sculptures’ can be mentioned here, as can ‘Melting Houses’, ‘Fat Cars’ or ‘The Artist Who Swallowed the World’, which was on show in a major exhibition at Vienna’s mumok in 2006. Wurm’s works are shown worldwide in galleries and museums, for example recently in São Paulo, Brazil or at the 57th Venice Biennale. ‘Erwin Wurm has found an artistic language that is universal and can be understood as encompassing. Its frame of reference can be received equally, everywhere. Erwin Wurm’s creation and his impact is more international, successful and momentous than any other living Austrian artist.’1 Erwin Wurm lives and works in Vienna and Limberg, Lower Austria. In 2023 Erwin Wurm’s sculpture are on show in both the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.