Erwin Wurm – Dissolution

Gestural sculptures formed in ceramics are the focus of Erwin Wurm: Dissolution. Wurm’s anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures, their forms oscillating between the ephemeral and the physical, are characterized by performative gestures. They affirm the inherent plasticity of the material clay, recalling the potency of bozzetti, in which artists from the Renaissance onwards were able to give direct expression to their innermost creative ideas. In Dissolution (2018–2020), Wurm sets out in search of a creative process that cannot be completely controlled. “Dissolution” has connotations of disintegration, decay, decomposition, and vanishing boundaries. The sculptures—with their protruding fingers, hands, lips, mouths, breasts, bellies, noses, and ears—force their way out of a clayey mass.