Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Erwin Wurm’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. For this exhibition, the Austrian artist who has redefined the categories of sculpture and performance art will premiere recent sculpture and photography from his most iconic series. Each week, visitors will be invited to activate one of Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures by mimicking a unique pose with a typical household item, with the durational sculpture captured in a Polaroid photo that may be taken home. This exhibition represents the artist’s return to China after nearly a decade since his 2010 solo exhibition at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Monday, March 25, at the Pedder Building, from 6 to 8 PM. Erwin Wurm will also be featured in the Lehmann Maupin booth (1C21) at Art Basel Hong Kong, opening March 29 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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.