Major new exhibition of the work of acclaimed Austrian artist Erwin Wurm at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

“I had been aware of Erwin and admired his work for a long time and then somebody introduced us during lockdown and we did a Zoom call,” says Clare Lilley, director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. “At that time, I was thinking that, in terms of programming, what we needed after the pandemic was work that was uplifting with a vibrancy about it – and his work is so joyful and colourful.”

Many of Wurm’s sculptures are on a monumental scale, which makes them particularly well-suited to the wide-open spaces of the YSP. “Erwin was very excited about the prospect of showing his work here,” says Lilley. “He is really interested in the public realm and he likes the fact that people can come across his sculptures while they are walking around the Park – he is always very clear that he is not just creating work for the elite, closed circle of the art world, it is for everyone to enjoy.”

Early in his career, back in the late 1980s, Wurm began making what he called One Minute Sculptures – an ongoing series where he gives written or drawn instructions for participants to pose with ordinary objects such as a piece of fruit, a chair, a bucket. He documents the interactions through photography or video, thereby neatly connecting artist, artwork and viewer. These simple yet layered mini-artworks were what first brought him to prominence. “I think he was surprised at how they took off,” says Lilley. “But they give people permission to be playful and they are such strong, memorable images. Once you start looking at them, you want to get a couple of oranges and a bucket and do it yourself.”

As a student, Wurm was initially more interested in being a painter but wasn’t accepted on to the painting course and was enrolled instead on the sculpture course. “That was frustrating but also a challenge,” he says when we speak shortly before the show’s opening. “So, I started asking questions about sculpture, about material and time and dimension, all those things – and what were the parameters. I began to ask questions about whether gaining or losing weight is a sculptural issue or wearing lots of layers of clothing, or whether an emotion like embarrassment, for example, can have a sculptural quality. ”

This oblique, accessible, inclusive approach runs through all Wurm’s work alongside a sense of fun, inventiveness and experimentation. Amid the playfulness, though, there is also a political edge to his work and he addresses social issues and weighty philosophical preoccupations with a deft lightness of touch. “I believe in levity through artwork – I am concerned about the world and the future for my children and grandchildren, but I try to look at it from a perspective of paradox or absurdity,” he says. “You can talk about big, serious matters, problems and issues but address them in a light, sometimes absurd, way.”

The subjectivity of truth and consumerism are both recurring themes for Wurm. “When we say truth and reality, we each mean very different things – that is a fascination for me and I am trying to deal with it all the time in my work,” he says. “And I look at consumerism as a way that we define ourselves – through cars and fashion.” Consumerism is also a way in which humans conform to society’s expectations, something which Wurm highlights and upturns in his work.

One of the largest pieces in the show is the 5m high Big Kastenmann (2012) which has a large box for a torso, wearing a suit jacket, with human legs emerging from the underside. There are sculptures from Wurm’s Bags series including Big Step (2021), which takes the form of a Hermes Birkin bag, walking purposefully on long, elegant legs. Also featured in the open air is one of his gigantic gherkin sculptures, the 4m high Der Gurk (2016). “I started making the pickled cucumbers because I was thinking about what humans, but especially men, have done to our planet,” says Wurm. “They were a comment on ridiculous manhood, a symbol of a stupid kind of masculinity.” Other works reference philosophers, psychologists and thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud and Wittgenstein who have been and continue to be an influence and inspiration for Wurm.

The earliest work, on display in the Underground gallery, is Renault 25 from 1991 – a full-sized Renault 25 car that has been reconstructed on a tilt to appear to be speeding around a corner, while Truck II (2011) is a bright red, bendy truck that looks like it has reversed up the wall. “Those are both such incredible technical feats,” says Lilley. “I find it so uplifting and wonderful that he has thought about it and just done it – it makes you feel everything is possible.”

Possibility, questioning and going against convention seem to be at the heart of Wurm’s work and personal philosophy. He first became interested in art at a relatively young age. “When I was about 12, I got some paperback books – the first was by Bertolt Brecht, I don’t know why I chose that, maybe because it had an attractive cover, but I started to read and it opened a door for me. Art, philosophy and literature, that became my world.”

By the time he was 15 he had decided that he wanted to become an artist; his parents disapproved. “My father was a police detective and my mother was a housewife – they were lovely parents but I remember there was a lot of door-slamming at that time,” he says, laughing. “I had to be stubborn, but I wanted to have a good relationship with my parents, I didn’t want it to break down. My father said you have to train for a profession first – so I trained first as an art teacher and then went on to study art later. I worked as an art restorer to finance my studies.”

Lilley hopes that audiences will find the show both uplifting and thought-provoking. “I think the exhibition will provoke and captivate – it is a great pleasure and privilege to be staging it. It’s a show that will make people laugh but also stop and think. Erwin is so polite and lovely but so irreverent and radical at the same time – he is a courteous iconoclast; it’s such an interesting combination.”

Erwin Wurm: Trap of the Truth is at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, until April 28, 2024. ysp.org.uk