Performative Sculptures

For Erwin Wurm, whose extensive interest for architecture is well known, modernistic architecture has become extremely ephemeral in contrast to the past centuries when it was built to last. The Performative Sculptures are a new series of physical performances on clay models of some contemporary iconic Yugoslavian buildings, to physically interact with sculpture and its materiality. The entire performance takes place during the opening on clay models, all malformed from the performers having punched and altered them with their own body weight and actions. Shown in a state of incompleteness, the sculptures are not “attacked” but physically transformed by different intellectual social and artistic perceptions. The marks left during the performance are frozen into clay and give the works an amorphous aspect, emblematic of Wurm’s work. There is something playful but yet controlled in this process of mutation, destruction and preservation of such forms. The performers and the audience become bigger than the clay models of the cities, and this omniscient view on them, affects our relationship with reality itself.