Erwin Wurm – The Story of the Pickle
The Gurkerl – or pickled cucumber – is a recurring motif in Erwin Wurm’s work. To him, the pickle embodies individuality because no two pickles are alike. Just like human beings. Differences are the conditio sine qua non. And so the sculpture of the pickle is like a green thread woven through Wurm’s oeuvre, whether larger than life in Salzburg’s Furtwängler Garden or as the radiant necklace created for the House of Köchert.
Is it irony, or is it truth? Usually both, as irony and the absurd are the master’s passion. Just look at the endless photo series “One Minute Sculptures”, in which people interact with seemingly insignificant everyday objects. The ordinary has a powerful, almost magical pull on the artist; his aim is to recognise art within day-to-day life. The result is invariably playful satire and eccentric humour. He also shifts everyday perspectives in many of his sculptures, for example in “Fat Car” and “Fat House”. In his major 2006 retrospective at the Mumok (the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) in Vienna, he presented a bent VW bus – supposedly the product of a mentalist. Well, even metaphysics gets a subtle satirical roasting in Wurm’s work.
The pickle that the artist created for Köchert, on the other hand, is of very real values – gold, emerald, tsavorite and peridot. Produced in a limited edition. And because it is also art, there is certainly no need to debate the curvature of the pickle.