About the Work
The slender, 168-centimetre-tall sculpture 'Untitled' stands unsupported in the exhibition space. Only at close quarters does it become clear that this is a pair of pinstriped trousers whose legs are filled with galvanised metal. One leg is extended vertically over the other. Together, they form a dark column, around the middle of which, not without irony, the rest of the trousers can be seen flapping. The Austrian artist Erwin Wurm transforms ordinary items of clothing into artworks in line with Marcel Duchamp's concept of the ready-made: an everyday object that is changed slightly and presented in the exhibition space as a sculpture. As a result, the traditional idea of sculpture as a form created by the artist's hand and extracted from the material is called into question. The results are objects which mostly produce a quirky effect. Wurm repeatedly makes use of clothing as a flexible basic material, which thus acquires an independent existence beyond its everyday functions.
