BOLDTYPE ISSUE #44: Artwork By
The cover image for this issue of Boldtype is a detail of "Outdoor sculpture Cahors," a 1999 photograph from Austrian artist Erwin Wurm's new monograph The Artist Who Swallowed the World, published by Hatje Cantz in 2006 and distributed in North America by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. An established figure in the contemporary art world, Wurm creates and documents interactive sculptures that rely heavily upon the participation of his audience and himself. The images in this catalog trace the development of his artistic interests and thought processes through the course of his active career; they are accompanied by his own insights in the form of sketches, quotes, and notations.
The simultaneously absurd and alluring imagery in "Outdoor sculpture Cahors" perfectly captures the "serious play" evident in all of Wurm's work. By documenting a singular gesture that existed for only a brief moment in time, Wurm establishes it as a lasting artwork, while asserting the importance of the human body as a creative material. Using only a body and a wall, Wurm reveals the hidden interactions that permeate the world around us, waiting to be discovered.
Born in 1954 in Bruck an der Mur, Austria, Wurm currently lives in Vienna and Limberg, exhibiting in major institutions around the world. The Artist Who Swallowed the World was published to coincide with the traveling exhibition of the same name, which originated at MUMOK in Vienna in 2006, proceeded on to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen the following year, and is currently on view at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Wurm's work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums and institutions, including the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
- Allison Kave
