Erwin Wurm

Erwin Wurm is one of Austria’s most celebrated artists. He was born in Bruck an der Mur, Austria in 1954. His father was a police detective who was not enthusiastic about his son becoming an artist. Wurm studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he later taught as a professor from 2002 to 2010.

He began his career as a painter and then expanded his oeuvre to include printmaking, sculpture, performative art and photography. His works are funny, satirical, often exploring the social themes of consumption, excess, and the human obsession with body.

For his One Minute Sculptures, Wurm invites viewers to interact with everyday objects in unusual and often humorous ways. He then takes Polaroids of the event for exhibit. In their 2004 Can’t Stop video, the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed a series of One Minute Sculptures and credit Wurm as the inspiration for the video.

Wurm has a studio in Limberg, Austria, about an hour’s drive from Vienna, where he also works. He also spends time in New York and Hydra, Greece. He is married to Elise Mougin, with whom he has one child. His son, Michael, from a previous marriage, runs his Limberg Studio.

In 2018, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale. Erwin Wurm’s works are part of the permanent collections of major museums around the world, including MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, the Normas Foundation in Rome, Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Long Museum in Shanghai the Albertine in Vienna and many others.