ERWIN WURM

Double Dream debuts two new sculptures from Wurm’s Dreamer series. Both works, Nurse and Double Dreamer (2026), feature figures whose entire upper bodies have been replaced by massive pillows, squashed as if pulled off an unmade bed. The absence of identifying features gives these pieces a sense of both anonymity and universality, yet despite lacking faces, arms, and torsos the sculptures still manage to express their distinct personalities. In Double Dreamer, two pillows are stacked on top of a pair of legs that hug tightly together, suggesting shyness, unease, or reticence, while in Nurse, the figure stands with legs apart, confidently bearing the weight of an oversized cushion. In both works the sculpture’s head is subsumed within a large pillow. Without the ability to see clearly, the figures find their perception clouded and they become lost in their own thoughts, dreams, and illusions.

The exhibition also features a number of new and recent Substitutes, ranging from the petite to the towering. In this series Wurm continues his decades-long exploration of clothing as a sculptural medium, and in these works he absents the body entirely, leaving empty garments cast in aluminium or bronze. In Double Dream, Substitutes fill the largest gallery, creating a field of brightly colored figures seemingly suspended mid-motion. Again, even without heads, faces, or hands, Wurm successfully conveys the personalities and moods of his figures through shrewd choices in posture, scale, and color. In the smallest work, Waiting Pink Small (2024), a diminutive pink suit stands with its arms by its sides, one foot slightly in front of the other to reveal flattened dress socks. The figure’s stance suggests a body in pause, and the sculpture appears to be waiting patiently for something intangible.

Double Dream showcases the breadth of Wurm’s experiments with the figure—at turns present, absent, supplanted, or distorted. Where the artist’s Dreamers visualise psychological weight, his Substitutes examine how clothing can function as a stand-in for the individual. Here, clothing is revealed as an icon, symbol, signifier, or even avatar, reinterpreting the age-old maxim ‘the clothes make the man.’ Across the Substitutes and Dreamers, Double Dream reveals Wurm to be a sculptor of surprising economy, continually asking how much can be communicated with how little.