Wurm has produced a body of work that explores the exciting possibilities of sculpture, pushing the boundaries of this static art form to incorporate participatory, temporal, and psychological elements. As an artist, Wurm is interested in conditions that test the limits of form and evoke the absurdity that can be found in the routine and mundane actions of everyday life. For Wurm, all forms, including our own bodies, can be considered and activated as sculpture. Famous works like Fat House (2003) and Fat Car (2001) exemplify this point, making our most iconic architecture and design susceptible to the biological processes of a human body, in this case the visual effects of gaining weight. Wurm will also often attribute human traits to inanimate objects, by giving human appendages to luxury handbags or moss-covered boulders as a way to demonstrate the socially reinforced implications that these objects hold through enticing anthropomorphic forms.

For this exhibition, Wurm has produced new cast metal sculptures from his ‘Abstract Sculpture’ series, depicting sausages with human features that highlight the absurdity behind common references or figures of speech. These works hint at both the cultural associations of the sausage and the Bavarian region he is from, as well as the form’s relationship to the body as a phallus. This psychological extension of the self onto objects, and vice versa, is a critical component of Wurm’s oeuvre, in which he uses humour and the projection of human emotions and ego to hint at deeper, more existential issues.

Wurm’s interest in the absurdity that can be found in mundane scenarios of daily life has deep roots in his One Minute Sculptures, which were the focus of Wurm’s presentation for the Austrian Pavilion at the 57^th Venice Biennale. These sculptures require a participant to enact simple yet outlandish poses with an object for one minute. The precision with which the participant is able to execute the pose determines the success of the sculpture, which exists for only its enacted duration, and in the original photographic documentation. Despite its title role in the series, the actual timeframe of one minute is less important than the participant’s awareness and reaction to the time passing while enacting the sculpture, and their own experience of being on display as an artwork. In this regard, this series democratises a medium traditionally used to commemorate significant, historical figures. Wurm’s work thus challenges this long-standing function by allowing any individual to become a work of art. In addition to the opportunity for the public in Hong Kong to engage in their own One Minute Sculptures, a series of Polaroid photographs depicting Wurm and others enacting them will be on view.