Erwin Wurm

Action or Sculpture?
12/20 | Amanda Ryan

Since the 1980s, Erwin Wurm has created “one-minute sculptures,” for which a participant strikes an unlikely pose with an object while being filmed or photographed. Demonstrating that the performance is more important than the end product, in some videos Wurm attempts impossible balancing acts, failing again and again for the duration of the minute. He explains that, “I want to deal with with the idea of ‘is this an action or is this a sculpture?’ When does one turn into the other?”