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040515: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg: Erwin Wurm – Fichte
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg / Art Museum Wolfsburg
Erwin Wurm – Fichte
22.03.2015 – 13.09.2015
A joke for the sake of a joke
By Raimar Stange
Sculptures, photos, videos and installations by Erwin Wurm re presently being shown in the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg / Art Museum Wolfsburg. The works from over 20 years of artistic production prove: jokes are also a precarious matter which is not always funny.
A "Toilet", 2014 in the first room of the exhibition "Fichte" (spruce), its lavatory bowl is so small that, on the one hand, it can hardly be used, and on the other, if MALE wants to, is reminiscent of labia. Does this work by Erwin Wurm, which reminds art historians of Marcel Duchamp's urinal "Fountain" (1917) really succeed “in debunking the pathos and the dramatics as well as the absurdity of social conventions" (press release)? Or is it only about a would-be, culturally solicitous joke for men? Wurm's installation "Spruce" (2015) In the main room of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg: numerous firs are hanging from the ceiling, upside down, turning established order topsy-turvy. This is valid in as far as it's not about spruces here, as the work's title suggests, but about firs. So confusion appears in the aesthetic master plan, which, for Wurm, is usually determined by the discrepancy between proportions and perspectives. But does it really work out through the reference to the German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, to gain an extra dimension? It's well known that Fichte emphasized, and the press release also makes reference to it: "one has to inflict a suspicion into the rules?" But the problem about this art has been for a long time that its injury of the rules – at least in the ‘operating system’ of art, in which almost everything is allowed – often gets stuck in the surprising and witty, but doesn't have any really "suspicious" quality. Thus, certainly no one will seriously allege "Spruce" as an ecological work about, for example, climate change.
The same goes for the "Curry Bus", 2015 parked in front of the museum, a converted VW bus, which has come apart at the seams and thus taken on a "fat" appearance. Motor and gearbox have been removed from the car, and there is now a functional hot dog stall integrated in the VW. One can order a curry sausage for four euros – and of course, the sausage is almost three times as big and just as "fat" as a commercial one. But the question which immediately comes to ones mind: is this "Curry Bus" really a "suspicious" critique of our consumer society or is it just a sculptural, whimsical joke which is more or less amusing?
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
38440 Wolfsburg, Porschestraße 53
Tel: +49(0) 5361- 26690
Fax: +49(0) 5361- 266966
E-mail: info@kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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040515
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
38440 Wolfsburg, Porschestraße 53
Tel: +49(0) 5361- 26690, Fax: +49(0) 5361- 266966
Email: info@kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 11-18 h
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
38440 Wolfsburg, Porschestraße 53
Tel: +49(0) 5361- 26690, Fax: +49(0) 5361- 266966
Email: info@kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 11-18 h
