Erwin Wurm

From 6 May to 22 November 2026
Venice, Museo Fortuny

Curated by
Elisabetta Barisoni and Cristina Da Roit

The Museo Fortuny presents the work of the Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm for the first time in Italy with a major monographic exhibition. Born in 1954 at Bruck an der Mur, in the course of his career, Wurm has radically expanded the concept of sculpture, questioning notions of time, mass and surface, abstraction and representation. For many decades he has been using clothes to deal with sculptural issues. On this journey, his path has frequently crossed that of Mariano and Henriette Fortuny.

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Applied Arts in Vienna in the late 1970s and ’80s, his One Minute Sculptures, begun in 1996-97, brought Wurm great international success. In them, the artist provides observers with instructions that indicate actions or poses to be performed with everyday objects, such as chairs, buckets, fruit, sweaters… These sculptures are ephemeral by nature, and this has led Wurm to challenge the formal qualities of different visual languages by superseding the boundaries between art and everyday life, viewer and participant. 

The One Minute Sculptures series  explores the idea of the human body as sculpture; in other works Wurm anthropomorphises everyday objects in unexpected ways, adding legs to bags, contorting sausage-like shapes (Abstract Sculptures), or expanding the volume of technical and architectural objects (Fat Car, Fat House). 

Wurm considers the physical act of gaining and losing weight as a sculptural gesture, and often creates the illusion of bodily growth or shrinkage in his work.

Humour is also an important instrument, but at the same time his work invokes essential philosophical, psychological and social questions. A critique of contemporary society often appears in his practice, particularly in response to capitalist influences and the consequent social pressures that the artist sees as contrary to our inner ideals. Wurm stresses this dichotomy by working within the liminal space between high and low, to explore what he himself sees as a farcical and invented reality.

“The ordinary is so close and so familiar to us that we are inclined to neglect it. Looking at the ordinary from the perspective of the absurd and paradox gives us an opportunity to see something different, perhaps more interesting.”
– Erwin Wurm

The exhibition can be visited according to the museum’s opening hours and access conditions.