Erwin Wurm Dissolution

Wurm’s anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures, whose forms fluctuate between ephemeral and physical realms, are born of performative gestures. The sculptures affirm the materials’ inherent malleable nature and evoke the effective use of bozzetti, which artists from the Renaissance onwards used to bestow direct expression to their innermost creative ideas.

With his series Dissolution, Wurm embarks on a search for a creative process that ultimately cannot be controlled. The term ‘dissolution’ means disintegration, expiration, decay, the abolition of constraints. Correspondingly the sculptures from which fingers, hands, lips, mouths, breasts, stomachs, navels, noses, and ears emerge are wrenched from a clay mass.

Erwin Wurm’s ceramic sculptures, which appear as abstract characters, echo deconstructions and deformations, yet the artist plays with paradoxes like a virtuoso musician, combining realism and abstraction within the sculptural forms: the multifaceted gestures of imaginary role play are familiar to the observer, while the abstract sculptural forms take on both figurative and human characteristics simultaneously.

In juxtaposition to the interior of the Biedermeier-style Geymüllerschlössel, a branch of the MAK Vienna, tableaux vivants are created: dramaturgical arrangements between movement and calm, history and the present. These too are documented in the publication as much as the sculptures themselves. Illustrations of the works are complemented by texts from the publishing editors Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Rainald Franz, and Bärbel Vischer as well as an interview with the artist.