Erwin Wurm
:
Project For the Old Town Center of Krems
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Twelve grey rubbish bins are situated at different locations in the historic city centre of Krems. Each of the crates has a different coloured pullover stretched inside it, the three holes of which, the arms and the buttonholes are marked on the outside with symbols that allude to the separation of refuse.
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Erwin Wurm's project involves "twelve garbage containers" that have been placed at various locations in the old town center so that they cannot be recognized at first glance as being art objects in the usual sense. However, once a pedestrian passes by them or even uses them, he/she takes not of the external shape of the garbage can. This square gray metal box has, apart from its function, nothing to do with the usual usage of the standard orange-coloured plastic containers. Erwin Wurm has designed his own standardized garbage can. "Similar to the sweater pieces where I made podiums over which it was still possible to pull a sweater, I used this state of still being able to something over and the turned-over podium to make an iron box in which a garbage sack has been tucked in."
Garbage containers, set at street level, require space. They exhibit their volume. In each container, a different-coloured sweater has been placed, the three openings of which, the sleeves and the collar hole, are marked on the outside with three symbols that refer to the separation of different types of garbage. Erwin Wurm’s piece introduces a banal everyday object into the artworld, by shaping it and then exposing it to a freely accessible, public space. The act of making an everyday object into art is carried out by the user himself. The unspectacular public art of "throwing away garbage" – an act that is subject to temporal constraints – becomes a performance, an artwork.
(Franziska Lesák)
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