iPalazzo Fortuny (Museo Fortuny)San Marco
Erwin Wurm. Dreamers
First major Italian retrospective of Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm: One Minute Sculptures, anthropomorphic objects and the body as sculpture, blending humour and philosophy.
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On the second floor, the art is you. Wurm's One Minute Sculptures hand you instructions: hold a pose with a chair, a bottle, a book or a piece of clothing, and for one minute you are the sculpture.
Downstairs on the ground floor, the sculptures do the posing themselves. Pillows stand on human legs, empty clothes stand up with no body inside, and the dressing gown Rodin gave his Balzac comes back as 3.2 metres of aluminium. It is the Austrian sculptor's first major retrospective in Italy, hung among Mariano Fortuny's own works in his old palazzo.
Maurizio Cecchetti, reviewing it for Finestre sull'Arte, called it "brilliantly ironic", with a "bitter aftertaste" that arrives after a while, though he felt the satire "grabs attention but doesn't bite". Entry is the museum ticket, €15 or €7.50 reduced, with the MUVE app audio guide included. From 1 November the palazzo closes at 17:00, last entry 16:00, and it is closed on Tuesdays. The show ends on 22 November.
Editor's pick
The first major Italian retrospective of the Austrian sculptor: One Minute Sculptures, anthropomorphic objects and the body treated as sculpture. A One Minute Sculpture takes about as long as your holiday-photo pose on the Rialto.
Look for
The One Minute Sculptures
Look for the instructions on the second floor, then pose with a chair, bottle, book or garment and become the work for sixty seconds.
The Dreamers
Oversized pillows propped on human legs, which Cecchetti likened to turkeys or ostriches with no wings or heads.
Balzac
A 3.2-metre aluminium take on the dressing gown Rodin draped over his Balzac, swollen with extra forms that read as a stifling bourgeois life.
Uncle Bazooka
An overfed figure in military dress, painted an unlikely bubblegum pink.
Yikes beside Fortuny's Knossos shawl
Wurm's garment frozen mid-moment is paired with Fortuny's shawl, a flat piece of silk that only takes shape when someone wears it.
Good for
- Out-Of-Town Guests
- Teenagers
With kids
Ages 6 to 14 pay €7.50, and a group of two adults with at least one child up to 16 all pay the reduced rate. The second-floor One Minute Sculptures invite visitors to pose with everyday objects.
Also at Palazzo Fortuny (Museo Fortuny)
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Image credits
9
- Erwin Wurm. DreamersPhoto Markus Gradwohl
- Michael Armitage. The Promise of ChangePhoto by Tom Jamieson © Michael Armitage. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
- Amar Kanwar. Co-travellersCourtesy of Palazzo Grassi
- Bizhan Bassiri. Principe. Il Nottambulo del Pensiero MagmaticoCourtesy of Museo Correr
- Palazzo Fortuny (Museo Fortuny)Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Casa di Carlo GoldoniSailko / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Palazzo GrassiDidier Descouens / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo CorrerWolfgang Moroder / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Fondazione Bevilacqua La MasaAbxbay / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0