Spend anytime in the Austrian art world and the name Erwin Wurm pops up regularly. Although known best for his sculptures, the Albertina Modern’s retrospective covers the entirety of his innovative oeuvre.
- Honours his 70th birthday
- Sculptures, drawings, paintings & more
- Covers important works, periods and series
- Book Albertina Modern tickets* online
- Runs Sept 13, 2024 – Mar 9, 2025
- See also:
A retrospective
(Erwin Wurm, Mind Bubble Walking Pink, 2024, 230 × 165 × 125 cm, aluminium; press photo © Erwin Wurm / Bildrecht, Wien 2024; photo by Markus Gradwohl)
You have to sit up when someone’s works find their way into the Tate, the Centre Pompidou or New York’s MoMA and Solomon R. Guggenheim museums.
Such is the case with Erwin Wurm, whose creative output appears all over the world in exhibitions and collections, firmly establishing the Austrian as one of the most successful artists of our day.
Wurm is best known for his sculptures. Marble sausages and handbags on legs might attract a smile, but any humour in his many works is incidental to the invitation to reassess the way we look at the everyday, the objects around us and the absurdity and paradoxes of life.
And Wurm has also pushed the envelope on the exact nature of sculpture. In his text sculptures, for example, descriptive words translate into a unique imagined image in the mind of the listener or reader.
Wurm’s famous One Minute Sculptures see sculpture meet performance art as he invites bystanders to form their own temporary installation according to his instructions. The outcome survives only if captured, for example, in a photograph.
When the Red Hot Chili Peppers shot their video for the 2003 single release Can’t Stop, the poses taken drew their inspiration from Wurm’s immersive format, as acknowledged at the end of the video.
(Erwin Wurm, Eames, from the Neuroses series, 2023; 77 × 68 × 61 cm, aluminium; press photo © Erwin Wurm / Bildrecht, Wien 2024; photo by Markus Gradwohl)
Wurm’s work, though, also covers photographs, paintings, videos, and more. His drawings featured, for example, at Vienna’s Albertina museum in 2019 in the solo Peace & Plenty exhibition.
More recently in Vienna, a 4m high hot water bottle and an 80m2 purple sweater appeared in Stephansdom cathedral.
The 2024 retrospective at the Albertina Modern honours the artist’s 70th birthday. It pays tribute to Wurm’s diverse output by covering various media along with his more recognised and important works and series. (So not just those famous sculptures.)
As such, we see everything from early wood and dust sculptures of the 80s through to Wurm’s latest works.
I’ll add more details once I’ve had the chance to visit.
Dates, tickets & tips
Enjoy the full gamut of Erwin Wurm’s creativity from September 13th, 2024 to March 3rd, 2025. An entrance ticket for or from the Albertina Modern includes the exhibition within.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
For much of that period, the museum also has an exhibition of drawings by Alfred Kubin. I’d suggest seeing that before Wurm’s works, since the latter’s use of colour and his less-despairing outlook should restore your demeanour after exposure to Kubin’s dark (in many senses of the word) images.
How to get to the works
Just follow the travel tips on the main Albertina Modern page. The museum is easily reached by foot from the centre or through tram and subway lines to Karlsplatz.
Address: Karlsplatz 5, 1010 Vienna