One Minute Sculptures | The Worley Gig

Installation View (All Photos By Gail)

If you enjoy humorous, absurdist art in the conceptual style of David Shirley, and you also love Midcentury Modern Furnishings, and you have an Instagram account, then you will surely go wild over Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm’s latest exhibit, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, which is in its final two weeks at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. Grab your camera and your sense of childish playfulness and head on over!

Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (which is also the title of the piece seen front and center in the above photo) is an exhibit that a encourages — even demands — viewer participation in that you are asked to physically interact with the art in a series of One Minutes Sculptures, as follows:

The basic premise of a One Minute Sculpture remains uniform. For each work, using a drawing or specific text, Wurm directs participants to pose with an object, which have ranged from cleaning products and sneakers to furniture and fruit. The viewer enacts the proposed sculpture on a low plinth, manipulating their body and the predetermined prop in a pose held for a short time.

While instructions are printed on each object, a descriptive sheet with photo illustrations is available at the gallery’s front desk.

Let’s take a closer look!

A Sofa and a Blue Dustpan invite you to perform the One Minute Sculpture known as The Parallel Universe.

Hold the Dustpan against the sofa with your body.

Instructions for Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Way: kneel in front of the chair and place your head through the hole.

Head TV: Lower your head through the hole in the cabinet.

Fun!

Wurm reiterates that the success of these ephemeral pieces is determined by the exactness with which the directions are executed, stating, “The One Minute Sculptures only come into existence if the public follows precisely the instructions of the artist and free will has a low priority.”

Deep Snow: Step into the holes and lift the bench, holding it aloft with your legs.

Organization of Love: With a partner, hold the foam sheet between your foreheads with your arms resting on the cushion.

Roast Yourself Under the Sun of Epicure: Rest your head under the lamp.

Spaceship to Venus: Lie down inverted on the seat of the chair and lift your legs in the air.

Equitable

In addition to the One Minute Sculptures, the exhibition includes five new sculptural works in cast bronze and mixed media, including Equitable (2016) and Flat Iron (2016), recreations of two iconic New York buildings that appear to be melting, and Bad Thoughts (2016), created by casting deformed bags of clay.

Flat Iron

Bad Thoughts

Bad Thoughts reminded me of Big Kastenmann, the sculpture that Wurm made for display in front of the Standard Hotel back in 2012. As you can see, the exhibit is lots of fun and be sure to go with a friends so that you can get your snaps in!

Erwin Wurm’s Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order will be on Exhibit Through May 26th, 2017 at Lehmann Maupin, Located at 536 West 22nd Street, in the Chelsea Gallery District.

Save

Synthesa Gallery View, All Photos By Gail

Mere seconds after entering Lehmann Maupin gallery for Erwin Wurm’s latest sculpture exhibit, Synthesa, we were already smiling from ear to ear. We first became acquainted with Wurm’s delightful sense of humor when his sculpture Big Kastenmann had its residency at the Standard Hotel in October of 2012, so it was lots of fun to experience an entire gallery full of works that express the Austrian artist’s unique world view.

White Bucket (Synthesa), 2013

Synthesa is comprised of three new sculptural bodies of work. Those within the title series of the exhibition, Synthesa, continue Wurm’s investigations of volume and abstraction of the human form. For these works, the artist works with the classical figure in the manner of a traditional sculptor yet drastically deconstructs and contorts each shape, inserting unexpected ready-made objects to further the abstraction.

For Wurm, these works explore psychological conditions, manifested in the physiology of the human form. Here, Synthesa represents the synthesis of opposing forces, both physical and emotional, traditional and unexpected.

Kiss (Abstract Sculptures), 2013

Similarly, Wurm’s series of Abstract Sculptures challenge our accepted impressions of the world around us. For this series, the artist contorts sausage-like forms into bronze sculptures that evoke anthropomorphic physical qualities and movement. Pulling the reference from his daily life and childhood, Wurm re-envisions the classic frankfurter in unexpected contexts to challenge our perceptions of the objects in reality. True to Wurm’s practice, these works are both familiar yet strange and evoke pause and contemplation from the viewer.

One Minute Forever (Skull / Banana), 2013

The third series of sculptures is called One Minute Forever, inspired by his popular his One Minute Sculptures public performance art piece. Wurm evolves those works from instructive and performance-based ephemeral sculptures into One Minute Forever’s physically enduring series, in which Wurm re-imagines the original One Minute Sculptures using skeletal forms to convey the eternity of each pose.

One Minute Forever (Joghurt Cup), 2013

Through these works Wurm embraces the persistent yet fleeting nature of time and examines this force as a unifying factor of human existence.

One Minute Forever (Bucket), 2013

Synthesa by Erwin Wurm will be on Exhibit Through April 19th, 2014 at Lehmann Maupin, Located at 540 West 26th Street in the Chelsea Gallery District. Gallery Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Mondays by appointment.

The Worley Gig

Tag Archives: One Minute Sculptures

Erwin Wurm’s Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, at Lehmann Maupin

Like this:

Erwin Wurm’s Synthesa at Lehmann Maupin

Like this:

A Blog Of Neat Things!

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

A Blog Of Neat Things!