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| Erwin Wurm, Tomorrow: Yes , 2026 Installation Taddaeus Ropac, Pantin |
Erwin Wurm's solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac's Pantin space is delightful. Visitors were treated to Wurm's familiar sculptures of clothes without bodies, bodies without substance, limbs without torsos in bright and playful, often humorous spirit. Again typical of Wurm's sculptures, in all of the works on display, there is always something sinister lurking underneath the surface joy.
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| Erwin Wurm, Shadow (Substitutes), 2024 |
Some of the the most delightful of the thirty works on display were the elongated and distorted clothes without bodies, stretched and almost two dimensional. Some exercising clothes, a slouching hooded sweat shirt presented as ghost like forms that were, nevertheless, very much alive. The clothes are surfaces without insides, and skin without flesh, that simultaneously, have everythign to dow ith the body. Looking at the works, visitors were also reminded of how posture is determined by clothes, and that clothes as a structure give identity, personality, motivation, and behaviour to those who wear them.
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| Erwin Wurm, Tomorrow: Yes , 2026 Installation Taddaeus Ropac, Pantin |
A policeman's uniform and cap, again without substance or third dimension that would be given to it by a body bring our attention to the significance of clothing. After having fun with the colorful and dynamic Yellow Bird (Substitutes) and White Bird (Subsitutes) on seeing Regret (Substitutes), 2025 we are reminded of how the power of a man in uniform is given him by the clothes that shape him. There is nothing substantial about his body, even though we behave towards it as if there is. The man is nothing without his uniform.
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| Erwin Wurm, Tomorrow: Yes , 2026 Installation Taddaeus Ropac, Pantin |
At the entrance to the exhibition, two box people and two awkwardly posed, misshapen, bodyless suits without heads plunge us into a world of obedience and its opposite, individuality. Do we identify with the perfectly pressed, straight back, button down suits or the slouching, slightly goofy and relaxed suits? To which will we conform? A fabricated school house also underlines this idea in a different way by creating a structure into which we can walk, but no one can fit. Chairs lined up at desks on walls are not made for humans, but for architectural symmetry. Again, it's funny and playful, but with a sinister lining that points to the imperative to conform to structures that disrespect human individuality.
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| Erwin Wurm, Mind Bubbles in Installation Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin |
A group of Mind Bubbles hang out together in the third space, with thin legs supporting thought clouds in various postures. The shapes are all at once sensuous - thanks to their bronze material - and fun, the idea of thought bubbles on legs, all with a different personality, a different set of ideas in motion, and somehow dark. The Mind Bubbles point out that we are walking thoughts, that the mind has taken over, and that we are without heart, without spirit, without anything but a head and picket legs. It is also interesting to watch ourselves tempted to anthropomorphize the shapes when the only thing that resembles people are the legs. Different positions of the legs see us attributing human characteristics to each shape, wanting to interact with them.
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| Erwin Wurm, Director's Rest, 2023 |
Ultimately, the exhibition shows the charm of Wurm's sculptures, his commitment to engaging with the history of art - after all, bronze sculpture is as hollow as clothes without bodies, as superficial and perhaps as influential - and his zany vision of the world. While I enjoyed the stroll around these inventive forms, I couldn't help wondering if magic actually extended to profundity.
