One Minute Sculptures
https://www.erwinwurm.at/artworks/one-minute-sculptures.html
German artist Erwin Wurm uses his sculptures to expand perceptual possibilities of our reality and is able to completely turn our worlds upside down. They push the boundaries of what sculpture can be. His sculptures combine people with objects in peculiar and unnatural ways. His One Minute sculptures require the participant to stay in the often difficult position for 60 seconds. This means that they need to stable enough to last this period of time. Thinking about stability is something to help me with making my own one minute sculptures. The subject and the object might need to support each other in order to stay stable.
I was drawn to his piece Untitled (Stairs), as Wurm has used the human body to mimic an object we can immediately recognise. As soon as we see three planks ascending upwards, we understand that they are designed to move us up and/or down levels. However, we know we cannot walk on these stairs as the person holding them is most likely unable to support us. So it gets us thinking about what makes a staircase usable. It also makes us question what makes a sculpture. If Wurm were to put a regular set of stairs in a gallery without combining a person with them, would this be classed as a sculpture? Or is it the combination of person and object that makes it art?