VIENNA (AFP) : A fat Ferrari, pickles on pedestals and two sausages in an intimate embrace — welcome to the weird world of Erwin Wurm, one of Austria’s most famous contemporary artists, who wants us to embrace the absurd. If we look at “our world from another perspective, from the perspective of the absurd, we might see more”, Wurm told AFP as a retrospective of his work opened in Vienna’s Albertina Museum to mark his 70th birthday. “Everything seems normal to us,” he said, but if we took another look “we might see different things, and that might be interesting for us to understand things differently”.
The show is a reflection on social norms, consumerist society and the diktats of appearance and even identity, with his quirky take on quintessentially Austrian staples such as sausages and pickled cucumbers alongside luxury bags on giant legs, miniature houses and stacks of clothing. “He likes to take everyday things..
. and present them as abstract elements, to make artworks out of them,” said curator Antonia Hoerschelmann. Wurm’s works are a reflection on consumerist society and social norms© Joe Klamar / AFP Born in the central city of Bruck an der Mur, Wurm wanted to become a painter, but after a university entrance exam found himself in a sculpture class instead.
“It was a big shock...
I was frustrated and sad, but then after some time I thought that maybe it’s a challenge. And from then on I started to think about the notion of sculpture,” .