Erwin Wurms Photographs

In keeping with its new curatorial strategy, for the first season in 2020 the MEP presents a programme showcasing both a major figure on the international art scene, and two emerging talents: in the main galleries the first ever exhibition of the photographic work of the Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, and in the studio Gangao Lang, winner of the Dior Photography Award for Young Talents, followed by French photographer Estelle Hanania.

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Erwin Wurm is best known for his sculptures and conceptual works, which have featured in major international museums and biennales, and bring together minimalism and performance art to investigate the relationship with the body and society through a refined sense of the absurd. The exhibition, Erwin Wurm Photographs is the first ever retrospective of the artist’s photographic output, and shows not only his use of the medium as a means of documenting and preserving his experimental performance pieces, but also as an art form in its own right, revealing the fundamental role of the camera in Wurm’s work: both in his so-called ‘photographic sculptures’ but also in film and video.
The exhibition draws directly from the artist’s archives, highlighting the photographic processes involved in iconic works, as well as presenting many previously unseen pieces, either exhibited here for the first time, or made especially for the occasion from his original contact sheets and vintage prints.

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To celebrate this major event, the MEP not only presents an outdoor installation in the garden of the museum, but also integrates a number of interactive works, including the famous “One Minute Sculptures”, which invite visitors to become living sculptures by following Erwin Wurm’s instructions, photographs of which will become part of the exhibition. In a satellite event with our partner les Magasins Generaux,18 interactive works will be placed in and around their site in Pantin from April 24 to May 24, with support from the galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

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