Artist and critic

“One Minute Sculptures”: Erwin Wurm turns 70

Erwin Wurm actually wanted to become a painter, but he failed the entrance exam and was "put" into the sculpture class.

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

Erwin Wurm is Austria's most successful living artist. His "One Minute Sculptures", in which the Styrian turns people into sculptures in grotesque contortions with everyday objects, made him famous in the 90s. In addition to material sculptures such as inflated cars and XXL gherkins, his work also includes videos, photos, drawings and books. 

On July 27, the State Prize winner will be 70 years old. Despite his international success, he has remained settled in Austria and lives at Schloss Limberg in Lower Austria. "I have many friends here. The nature is beautiful. There is such a great history of architecture and so on. Of course, there are also a lot of douchebags here, but they're everywhere anyway."

"Hyenas" and "fat ass system"
As present as Wurm is in the international art scene, he doesn't hold back when it comes to criticizing it. He described the global art market as a "hyena" in the 2012 TV documentary "The artist who swallows the world", which shows him as a self-critical artist jetting around the world who has no understanding of inefficiency in his day-to-day work. Wurm also used the presentation of the Grand State Prize on his 59th birthday to demonize the prevailing "fat-ass system".

The estate with works by Erwin Wurm

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

Whether he feels comfortable in the scene or not, today Wurm is one of the most important contemporary artists, is always at the top of the international art rankings (which he criticized) and exhibits all over the world. In addition to the State Prize, the father of three, who is married to the artist Elise Mougin, has also received the Otto Mauer Prize in 1984, the City of Vienna Prize for Fine Arts in 1993, the City of Graz Art Prize in 2004 and the Grand Josef Krainer Prize in 2024.

Erwin Wurm

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

"In the beginning I was infected by the quick success I achieved with the wood sculpture, which had a lot to do with wild painting. But then I quickly realized that this wasn't really my future and I left it behind," says Wurm. From 1990, he introduced his new way of working and "from then on, a thread runs through it. It's always about the concept of the sculptural in relation to the social."

Experiments with textiles and dust
He made his first sculptures from textiles, but also experimented with dust, until he landed an international coup with "One Minute Sculptures" in 1997 after a veritable crisis - his father and mother died in quick succession and his marriage to Dorothee Golz, from whom his sons Laurin and Michael were born, broke up.

Career

Erwin Wurm was born on July 27, 1954 in Bruck an der Mur and studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg from 1977 to 1979 and at the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1979 to 1982. "I actually wanted to become a painter, but didn't pass the entrance exam and was put into the sculpture class," says Wurm. He created sculptures from planks, slats and sheet metal, which he painted colorfully.

Lenten cloths and installations in Rome
In 2020, a Lenten cloth by Wurm was on display in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. In 2021, the elegant Via Veneto in Rome served as the backdrop for 14 installations by the Austrian art star. In the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana on St. Mark's Square in Venice, Wurm presented a new group of works consisting of bright white sculptures up to four meters high in 2022. In the same year, a huge bright red handbag with long legs adorned the city center of Bonn for an art project.