Erwin Wurm PEACE AND PLENTY

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseilles presents the works of Erwin Wurm, on view at the Cantini Museum. The musée des Beaux-Arts, the chapel at Centre de la Vieille Charité and the Château Borély gardens will also show accompanying works.

Erwin Wurm was born in 1954. He lives and works in Vienna and in Limberg/Lower Austria. During the 1990s, he attracted much attention with his "One-Minute Sculptures". Following the artist's partly written and partly pictorial instructions, visitors to the exhibition could themselves briefly become sculptures, by taking up often absurd poses frequently involving everyday objects – especially clothing – such as the knitted pullovers, frequently recurring in his works. Clothing as a sculptural theme, the second skin, the protective shell, the outline, and also the filling out of a volume is of prime importance in Erwin Wurm's complex work, which includes performance, video, photography, drawing and classical sculpture, in combination and interdependence. Time is a further important factor which he explores in all kinds of different  ways:  from the shortest-lived works , the "dust sculptures", through large-scale installations, in which fixed architectural components are dressed in knitted pullovers, to the performative "One-Minute Sculptures". Wurm understands the concept of sculpture as the pre-modern premise that sculpture is concerned with the alteration of mass and volume. In this respect, he describes humans gaining or losing weight as a sculptural act. His artistic expression, rather like the comic strip or science fiction images, is clear and simple, readily accessible to a wide public. At the same time, he makes use of cynical criticism. Individuality as a projection from outside. 

“I am interested in the everyday life. All the materials that surrounded me could be useful, as well as the objects, topics involved in contemporary society. My work speaks about the whole entity of a human being: the physical, the spiritual, the psychological and the political.” Erwin Wurm

MUSÉE CANTINI - A retrospective of the artist's most celebrated works and videos

CENTRE DE LA VIEILLE CHARITÉ - NARROW HOUSE

MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS - ONE MINUTE SCULPTURES

CHÂTEAU BORÉLY- BODIES (by reservation only)