Erwin Wurm

Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibition Catalogue, Aachen, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig; Hamburg, Deichtorhallen; St. Gallen, Kunstmuseum; Lyon, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, Erwin Wurm: The Artist Who Swallowed the World, 2006-2007, pp. 144, 164, 174, 216, 251, 253 (illustrations of details), p. 209, 249, 252 (installation illustrations in colour), illustrated on the cover in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. The illustration fails to show the figure's hands. Please refer to the online catalogue for the complete image. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon very close inspection, there are a few loose threads around the work's circumference that appear original to the work's execution, and a further area of wear to the bottom of the figure's right sleeve.
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"The skin of a bronze sculpture is very thin. It determines the form of the piece, but there is nothing inside. At a certain point I realized that clothes do the same thing. They lend form to the body. A house is like a third skin. But is it protective? ...[I am interested in] how this concept evolves and in the society it reflects." The artist in conversation with Femke de Wild in: "Think Thin', FRAME, Issue 78, 2011

In a similar vein to Maurizio Cattelan, the internationally lauded Erwin Wurm uses absurdist humor as a mode of social criticism, creating purposeful works of multilayered meaning that encourage multifarious interpretation. Through his surreal world, he challenges aesthetic boundaries and invites his audience to question themselves within their greater social context.

By using archetypes and icons, Wurm seeks to broach those subjects that matter to individuals on a daily basis, from beauty and obesity to healthcare, religion, the media and consumerism, in an effort to incite immediate recognition and create an open and assessable dialogue with his viewers. At the center of Wurm's artistic and theoretical concerns lies the realisation that contemporary society seeks to protect itself within a series of layers or shells that are becoming increasingly uniform.  To address this concept Wurm has utilized various everyday forms such as houses, cars and perhaps most pointedly, the human body.

While the human form and its ability to expand, contract, morph and change volume lends itself to comic resonance, Wurm's work moves beyond the joke and becomes just the opposite; it forces people to look closer. The present work employs the artist's trademark proportional distortion, challenging the viewers accepted vision of reality. While to stand before a man who has consumed the world is immediately amusing, the image quickly becomes one that the viewer faces with discomfort and apprehension. What does it mean to have swallowed the world? How does it affect this man? If you move from the literal to the figurative, do I swallow the world whole? Wurm has often criticized the ease in which the populous accept what they are told stating, "In the 1960s and '70s the media criticized and monitored the world, this is not happening any more. Nowadays the press most often conveys the ideas of people and groups. As a result the media contributes to the dissemination of certain opinions that are then shared by more and more people" (the artist in conversation with Femke de Wild in: "Think Thin', FRAME, Issue 78, 2011). With The Artist Who Swallowed the World, Wurm encourages the viewer to see beyond the surface, to debate, to dispute and to monitor.