Running from June 10, 2023 to April 28, 2024 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, England, the exhibition “Trap of the Truth” features more than 100 works of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm (born 1954), known especially for his 2017 Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. These 55 indoor sculptures, 19 outdoor sculptures, along with paintings, photographs, videos and drawings have been created over 30 years of the artist’s career.

Wurm is famous for expanding contemporary notions of sculpture with humorous works that often invite viewer participation or anthropomorphise everyday objects. He disrupts our sense of familiarity with absurd juxtapositions, leaving us with curiosity, wonder and a welcome breaking of (predictable and tedious) routine.

Wurm’s practice, now operating at a grand international scale, is still rooted in the challenges and resourcefulness of his early days. He explains: “At some point I came to realise that everything surrounding me can be material for an artistic work, absolutely everything. To begin with, because I had no money and worked relatively quickly, I used scraps of wood and cans. Then I used old clothing, which did not cost anything, before ultimately realising that I could actually use anything around me. That was the decisive step, as then anything was possible.”

“Erwin Wurm’s sculpture will be a riot of expression and colour against the green Yorkshire landscape and in the galleries,” writes Clare Lilley, Director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. “His imaginative powers are limitless, and we hope that visitors will be inspired, energised, confounded, and amused by sculptures that portray familiar objects but in a way that is entirely unexpected.

“Couture handbags grow long legs and arms and have real attitude; a four-metre-high hot water bottle becomes a big, warm mother; a real truck bends and climbs a gallery wall; a gigantic gherkin stands proud. Wurm draws attention to the ways in which humans conform to society’s demands, to the psychological impact of contemporary culture, and to how we use history and tradition to scaffold our lives. The exhibition will provoke and captivate and it’s a great pleasure and privilege to stage Erwin Wurm’s first museum show in the UK.”

The exhibition is supported by galleries Thaddaeus Ropac and Lehmann Maupin.

Links: Website (www.erwinwurm.at/artworks.html) | Instagram (www.instagram.com/erwinwurm)

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