ACFNY SUPPORTED | ERWIN WURM: HOT DOG BUS

This June, Public Art Fund will bring Erwin Wurm’s Hot Dog Bus to one of New York City’s most popular summer destinations, Brooklyn Bridge Park, creating an absurd, yet approachable art experience that will encourage visitors to rethink the fundamental definitions of sculpture. Wurm has transformed a vintage Volkswagen Microbus into a bright yellow, overstuffed food truck from which free hot dogs will be served to parkgoers on summer weekends.

His choice of the hot dog hints at the gastronomic connections between the city’s most iconic street food and his Austrian homeland, while he considers the act of eating to be an additive sculptural process in its own right. Wurm’s manipulation of the bus’s form is both a lighthearted and deliberate gesture: the shape is initially amusing and cheery, but it also suggests another layer of meaning, calling attention to the allure of consumption in today’s culture.

Wurm is well known for his works that redefine the very idea of sculpture, dissolving the limits between spectator and participant. In Hot Dog Bus, as with his celebrated One Minute Sculpture series, it is the participation of the viewer that “completes” the work. The manipulations of volume, form, and gravity have also long been the interests of the artist. He has anthropomorphized everyday objects in ways that distort, bloat, or shrink their shape, most notably altering automobiles in his Fat Car series. All of these ideas are fully realized in Hot Dog Bus: by modifying a Volkswagen Microbus to create an almost surreal experience of a corporeal food truck serving hot dogs, Wurm invites visitors to explore the transformation of the form of an everyday object as well as the potential of human action to create sculpture.

Hot Dog Bus is the U.S. premiere of Curry Bus, reimagined for New York, and will create an absurd, yet approachable sculptural experience encouraging visitors to challenge the fundamental definitions of art. Lead support for Hot Dog Bus is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Oliver’s Realty Group/RAL Development Services. Major support is provided by Jill & Peter Kraus, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, AllianceBernstein L.P, Matthew & Erin Bass, Mickey Cartin, Lehmann Maupin, and Anna Marie and Robert Shapiro. Support is also provided by Alan H. & Judith R. Fishman, Stephanie & Tim Ingrassia, and Linda R. & Andrew Safran. Special thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Erwin Wurm (b. 1954 Bruck an der Mur/Styria, Austria) lives and works in Vienna and Limberg, Austria. He regularly incorporates sculpture, performance, and installation to combine thoughtful formal concerns with a comic sense of absurdity. In 2017, Wurm represented Austria at the 57th Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Germany (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna, (2017); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo (2017); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2016); Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (2016); Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Thailand (2016); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków, Poland (2013); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2012); Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2012); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2011); Middelheimmuseum, Antwerpen, Belgium (2011); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2010); and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2010). He graduated from the University of Graz, Austria, in 1977, and Gestaltungslehre University of Applied Art and Academy of Fine Art, Vienna in 1982.

Get more Information >>here

Erwin Wurm, Hot Dog Bus, 2018. VW T2b, mixed media 220 x 250 x 550 cm. Courtesy of the artist, K11 Art Foundation Hong Kong, KÖNIG GALERIE Berlin, and Lehmann Maupin New York and Hong Kong. Photo: Liz Ligon, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

VENUE
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Pier 1 on Saturday, Pier 5 on Sunday
334 Furman Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201