'Erwin Wurm, the absurd object or eternal quest for sculpture' A feature about the artist who transforms ordinary objects into art, often requiring audience participation.

By Virginie Chumier-Layen 

Narrow, swollen houses, bloated cars, upside-down furniture-the world of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is filled with strange, often absurd creatures. Transformed from their utilitarian function, ordinary artefacts become meaningful works of art, often requiring audience contribution. 

Erwin Wurm is a conceptual artist who loves objects.Put this way, it may come as a surprise, given the physical"materiality" of his works. Born in 1954, Erwin Wurm is a sculptor and photographer who has recently returned to painting. Since the 1980s, he has constantly questioned the fundamentals of sculpture, deconstructing its traditional assumptions. Is Wurm's world a vast 'sculpture' questioning our society? He answers this question through a narrative, like design, built around the body and objects, with humor and a touch of disquiet.

Celebrating the ordinary object

A piece of furniture perched on a metal base, a gleaming Porsche suffering from angioedema, a man trapped in the armrests of a chair... Erwin Wurm apparently likes to transform archetypal forms, releasing them from their original functions to give them a new life and renew their use and image. 'I've always loved everyday objects that represent our society,' explains the man who had always dreamed of being a painter, but in the 1970s unwillingly joined the sculpture department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

'I use furniture from the 1940s-1950s, bought on the market or from my family, as these were the first democratic objects.' This desire to work with furniture was also born of an observation he made while browsing magazines pages. 'Some lifestyle magazines like 'AD' only present the individual through their living space, their interior and furniture. Physically absent, the latter doesn't seem interesting. Their disappearance caught my attention.' (...)