Fritsch, Wearing, Wurm Reading Responses

Reading Response (India)

 

Erwin Wurm in conversation with Max Hollein

Max Hollein Interviews Erwin Wurm about his series of one-minute sculptures, which are documented performances. Wurm is influenced by Yves Klein, Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman.  Wurm’s sculptures are spontaneous portraitures that are contorted, comical forms.

 

Wurm remarked that his greatest fear was of “sickness of the body and the spirit.” “Maybe,” he continued, “my whole work is about this fear,” an observation that points to the pathos that often resides within the comedic.  Wurm talks about the phenomenon known as "planking," where people stage themselves as stiff boards in public series spaces and let themselves be photographed.  He says that this could be interpreted as a continuation of his own sculptures.

 

Wurm uses photography as a medium to make sculpture though images.  He captures a form in a moment in time.

 

Thinking in Pictures: Katharina Fritsch in Conversation with Susanne Bieber

 

Fritsch photographs models and object to create sculptures within images.  She states how her sculptures can “never be totally grasped, like a picture that has something unresolved about it.  They stay in your head like an enigma.”

 

In Monk Doctor Dealer, Fritsch’s dark, severe figures are intended to reveal male power structures in our society.  She says, “Bad characters and such bad men are unfortunately still in the majority.”

 

Fritsch considers the entire gallery when having an exhibition.  She thinks of it as “one large-scale composition.”  She says, “Everything has to look completely natural, as though it had been absolutely no trouble, as though it had suddenly just appeared out of the blue.”

 

The Many Selves of Gillian Wearing

 

“Wearing's practice is distinctly multidisciplinary, switching from photography, to film, to sculpture, and at times utilizing all three.”  In one of her works, she used mask she had made of her family member, wore them and photographed portraits in an attempt to show concepts of selfhood.  

 

Wearing talks about Instagram having the potential for a huge audience.  However, Wearing states that “Instagram is perpetuating a constant daydream state.  Everyone has become a little bit more self-obsessed because of the internet, with things like ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ options, having followers, etc.  I think what drives narcissism is a fragile identity of self.”  She talks about how selfies are usually an inaccurate representation because of all the technology at the fingertips to alter the images.  When she photographs portraits, she gives people mask so the model doesn’t have to deal with revealing their own identity, because of all of the social media judgment.  

 

Conclusion

 

Wurm, Fritsch, and Wearing all use human subjects and photography to inform and create sculpture.  All three of them create images that are haunting, but in different ways.  Also, in all three text, getting to know the artist through interview enables the reader to feel a personal connection to the artist and the work.