THE work of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm
suggests that, despite the apparent coming of age of the postmodern oeuvre,
there appears to be a deeply rooted, if often quietly unapparent discomfort
in contemporary art practice relating to modernism’s formalist legacy, or
rather the medium-specific rigidity it implies. Perhaps the lingering
uneasiness is best described as a state of artistic schizophrenia in which
postmodern notions of innovation clash with a seeming unwillingness to
re-evaluate the status of Clement Greenberg’s artistic dystopia. But is it
at all possible for art to unburden itself from such wide-reaching schools
of thought, or is the question at hand the very validity of art that voices
ideas beyond form and texture?
In answering that question, the work of Erwin Wurm appears as a refreshingly
subtle, often comical statement on modern man’s fear of the formalist myth:
quietly critiquing current social and political, as well as art-historical
issues with an air of ironic sophisticationand playfulness. The piece Fat
House (2003), a life-sized model of a comically bloated building, for
instance, is symptomatic of the kind of engagement with irony and symbolism
that is at the heart of Wurm’s practice. Fat House reaches beyond a concern
with its own materiality, and functions as a kind of social commentary
which, at once, mocks modern dietary habits and a farcical modernist
obsession with self-reference. The piece seems to oppose Theodor Adorno’s
call for art as a self-contained, formally oriented entity, through its
voluptuous tangibility. And, as if further undermining Adorno’s views, an
animated video inside the house gives the piece a voice, with the Fat House
posing questions such as, ‘Am I a house? Am I a work of art? Who decides?’,
thereby bringing into the foreground a questioning of art historical
paradigms that is very much at the core of Wurm’s practice. The true triumph
of the piece, however, lies in the way in which it remains entirely
unashamed of the playfulness inherent in its use of symbolism: Wurm accepts
the limitations faced by art of making claims at transcendental truth, and
lets the work act as a simple but bold statement on the opulence of modern
life.
In more recent works, Wurm further expands on his critique of modernist
ideology. The artist who swallowed the world and The artist who swallowed
the world when it was still a disc (2006), both currently on show at the
Baltic Mill in Gateshead, reemploy the familiar symbol of the over-indulgent
person/object to comment on the way contemporary art practice sometimes
loses sight of its possibilities, through an exaggerated sense of
self-importance and by letting itself be overshadowed by ideology and
myth-making. The opposing views of the world as round or flat could thus be
seen to embody this dilemma, mocking the kind of self-indulgence that, more
often than not, stifles any artistic aspirations to take a self-critical
look at one’s own practice. As a solution to this problem, Wurm seems to
propose humour as a means of obtaining (or retaining) a self-critical
position.
If, however, the aforementioned works are seen as an overt critique of over-ideologised
art, then Wurm’s films and photographs, involving comically dysfunctional
items of clothing, imply that perhaps art’s role is related to its capacity
to challenge perception, not through illusion or spectacle, but by calling
into question the practicalities of the banal. In the piece 59 Positions
(1992), for example, people can be seen struggling with different garments,
generating laughable scenarios which address the everyday act of wearing
clothes as well as ridiculing the formal boundaries of sculpture.
Such characteristics of Wurm’s practice culminate, perhaps most prominently,
in a recent piece entitled Adorno was wrong with his ideas about art (2005).
The work provides 12 sets of instructions, reminiscent of those accompanying
Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures (ongoing), directing viewers to do things such
as hold their breath and think of Spinoza. It gains a dimension of critical
validity by openly challenging the rigid and inflexible guidelines for art
laid out by Adorno, and engaging viewers in a dialectical relationship
between overt art-theoretical critique, and a kind of formal
light-heartedness that grants the work an air of legitimacy. Whilst Wurm
doesn’t appear to be taking his statement all too seriously, the irony and
wit underlying the sculptures give his ideas weight. Furthermore, the work’s
immediacy avoids a tedious discussion on any potentially mediating
documentation, reinforcing the view that what is encountered can, in fact,
be taken at face value, rather than seen through the distorting prism of a
history that has little bearing on it.
Erwin Wurm’s work thrives, to a great extent, on its humorous and ironic
tone. Its true strength, however, lies in its ability to appropriate and, in
turn, challenge the languages and visual codes of a world assumed familiar.
Wurm calls into question the validity of an art historical legacy that still
casts its shadow over art today, and engages audiences in a satirical, yet
fundamentally critical discussion on art’s forms and social criticism alike.
SEBASTIAN TRUSKOLASKI IS AN ARTIST AND WRITER WHO LIVES AND WORKS IN LONDON