Erwin Wurm. Dreamers

On the occasion of the Giornata del Contemporaneo, the Museo Fortuny offers free admission to the exhibition “Erwin Wurm. Dreamers” and the museum’s permanent collections.
Erwin Wurm (Bruck an der Mur, Austria, 1954) is one of the masters of contemporary art who has revolutionised the very concept of sculpture, placing the body and everyday objects at the centre of a reflection that systematically breaks down the boundaries between art and life. Through irony and paradox, the artist transforms the ordinary into an absurd and provocative reality, inviting us to rediscover the familiar through a fresh and irreverent perspective.
The exhibition route, set out in the rooms of the Museo Fortuny, winds its way through physical forms and historical memories, finding its focal point in the concept of the garment as an extension of the human body. Mariano Fortuny’s famous dresses – the Delphos and the Knossos – are wrappings that take shape only through gesture or their relationship with the body, but in Wurm’s creations the garment becomes a simulacrum of the individual who has abandoned it. In both cases, the work inhabits the fine line between presence and emptiness, existing exclusively in the moment of action.
The spacious androne – the entrance hall – welcomes the visitor with a silent procession of the Substitutes, surrogates of human beings whose identity has been reduced to what they wear. Monuments to absence, these figures translate the tensions of the present into sculptural form, denouncing the pressure of the capitalist system and the social models imposed from without.
The itinerary continues on the first floor, where inanimate objects take on human form in the Dreamers, huge pillows in precarious poses supported by human limbs. Metaphors for the dream world, these figures explore the dualism between the material dimension and the psychological sphere of the unconscious.
The exploration of sculpture culminates on the second floor with the One Minute Sculptures that brought fame to the artist in the 1990s. Here, the public is called upon to move beyond the role of spectator to become a work of art themselves, interacting with everyday objects according to precise instructions. The performance lasts for just one minute – a fleeting gesture recorded in a photograph, stressing the bond between the moment and eternity.