Erwin Wurm, one minute sculptures. 1988-1998 Werkverzeichnis Index of Works Catalogue Raisonné. First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 2500.
Erwin Wurm's one-minute sculptures are performative pieces that the Austrian artist has been creating since 1988. The sculptures are all about viewer participation and mutual deconstruction of the genres of sculpture and performance. For Wurm, sculpture is a form of action. By limiting his intervention to a written instruction or a simple line drawing with text, Wurm not only 'dematerializes' sculpture but also connects it to conceptual art.
At any show featuring the sculptures, visitors are asked to re-enact the sculptures for a limited time period of 60 seconds. During that single minute, people at the exhibition space are seen lying on tennis balls or oranges; wearing thirteen pullovers over one another; embracing a chair; pressing bottles against the wall with their bodies, and holding their heads under a hammer that is fastened to the wall saying the name of Michel de Montaigne, Using simple props, visitors become a living sculpture for a brief moment in their lives, only to be documented by photographs or video.
Historian Stephen Berg has tried to explain the impact of these short-lived assemblages of body and objects in Wurm's performative sculptures: ‘The more that is poked into its orifices, and the more food and clothing that is accumulated around it, the clearer it becomes that the body and the self are no longer masters in their own house, and as a result achieve self-expression more through self-deformation.'
“My work deals with the drama of the triviality of existence," Wurm says. "Whether you approach it through philosophy or through a diet, you always lose out in the end."
This book is the catalog for a 1999 exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Kunsthaus Bregenz & Cantz, 1999. 30,5 x 23 cm. - 296 pages. Softcover. Printed wrappers with matching dust jacket. 132 drawings by Erwin Wurm. Text (in English, German and French) by Jérôme Sans. Includes an index of works. with black-and-white plates throughout. This first edition was limited to 2500 copies.
A very good copy in a good dust jacket showing a small rough spot near the Kunsthalle Bregenz on the front cover.