SALZBURG.- The exhibition Mindset presents new works by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm. Physicality and the process of absorption are central themes in Wurm’s sculptural practice, as is the relationship between self-image, identity and social norms. Created from 2024, his Mind Bubbles place ovular forms atop spindly, cartoon-like legs in anthropomorphic reimaginings of the thought bubbles found in comic strips. Wurm describes the sculptural form as ‘a symbol of an idea or a specific thought, which is not described.’ In their exaggeration and deliberate play with proportions, the Mind Bubbles adopt central motifs from Wurm’s practice: the anthropomorphisation of forms and the relationship between object and body.

Rather than following the realism of earlier series, the legs of the Mind Bubbles gesture to his Bag Sculptures, which give designer bags a pair of elongated cartoon legs. According to the artist, ‘it’s not a question of creating a cynical image of human figures [...] but of bringing out an abstract quality in everyday realities.’ In Wurm’s works, clothing – such as the colourful knitted sweaters worn by some of the Mind Bubbles – serves as a way to further humanise his sculptures while at the same time drawing attention to inherent social codes. While the Bag Sculptures comment on how fashion is tied to identity, status and consumerism through its relationship to the body, the Mind Bubbles represent the inner world of an individual.

Also on view in the exhibition are small-format ceramic sculptures created in collaboration with the renowned Austrian ceramic manufacturer Gmundner Keramik, which play with ambivalent representations of humanity. The works, glazed in bright colours, take up the forms of such everyday objects as cups and jugs, that are assembled into human-like figures. Wurm’s ceramic sculptures reveal the process of their creation: they are the result of deliberate deformation and rely on the gestural power of clay – a medium that corresponds to Wurm’s performative approach.

The sculptures in the exhibition are the result of the artist’s long-standing preoccupation with universal, recurring patterns and roles in the human psyche, as well as the sculptural potential of various states of mind. Deformed proportions, absurd poses and everyday objects combine to create works that give form to our inner world, our thoughts.

Over the course of his career, Erwin Wurm has radically expanded conceptions of sculpture, space and the human form. His sculptures straddle abstraction and representation, presenting familiar objects in a surprising and inventive way that prompts viewers to consider them in a new light. He offen explores mundane, everyday decisions as well as existential questions in his works, focusing on the objects that help us cope with daily life and through which we ultimately define ourselves. These include the material objects that surround us – the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the food we eat and the homes we live in.

With his One-Minute Sculptures – in which, using simple props, the viewer becomes the artwork for a limited time – Wurm erases the boundary between sculpture and viewer. The static presence of the sculpture is reversed, becoming instead a participatory process that incorporates the viewer’s own body. The ephemerality of these works subverts the permanence of traditional sculpture, with ‘one minute’ denoting the brevity of the action rather than a literal timeframe. There is offen a contemplative or philosophical dimension to the One-Minute Sculptures, which act as catalysts for a moment of introspection by placing the viewer in an awkward or paradoxical relationship to the prescribed objects.

Wurm achieves a transformation in the opposite direction when objects or forms in his work assume distinctly human attributes. In his Stone Sculptures and Tall Bags, these anthropomorphised objects are perched on legs with characteristics or postures that evoke distinct personalities. He has also explored clothing as a sculptural theme – as a second skin, protective shell, outline or the filling out of volume – in large-scale installations where architectural features are dressed in knitted pullovers. The artist views the bodily process of gaining or losing weight in sculptural terms as the addition or subtraction of material, and offen creates illusions of growth or shrinkage, as in his Fat Cars or Narrow House. In recent ceramic works, Wurm has abstracted and isolated body parts such as ears, noses, hands or nipples to create surreal and suggestive forms.

Wurm lives and works in Vienna and Limberg, Austria. The artist has twice participated in the Venice Biennale: with his installation Narrow House at the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti in 2011 and when he represented Austria in 2017. Recent solo museum exhibitions have been held at the Albertina Modern, Vienna (2025); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2023); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2023); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2023); Suwon Museum of Art (2022–23); Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2022); and Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2020). Wurm’s works are represented in the permanent collections of major international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Albertina, Vienna; the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; and the National Museum of Art, Osaka.

The artist’s works are currently on view at the Francisco Carolinum, Linz (until September 7); the Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga (until September 14); the Marmorschlössl, Leiserpark & Imperial Stables, Bad Ischl (until October 26); the Towada Art Center (until November 16); and the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz (until November 23).