Fat Car (Convertible) 2004/2005

The red-painted convertible "Fat Car" documents Erwin Wurm's seemingly playful approach to the utilitarian function of everyday objects, the materiality and material alienation of sculpture. As early as the 1980s, Wurm dealt with expansion as a design concept. His "fat sculptures", realised in the early 2000s, are particularly well known. Status symbols, such as the family home or the car, are inflated and transformed into art. By layering materials, even a Porsche, as a fast sports car an exclusive symbol of boundless mobility, is subjected to an expansion intended by the artist. The original shape and natural proportions are lost in the process, the enormous volume and the bloated "obesity" result in an unroadworthy and immobile "fat car", a bizarre and grotesque creature that seems to melt away in its optical softness. The expectations and habits of the recipients are irritated and deliberately broken. Wurm is not only interested in the theme of "deformation", but also wants to stimulate the viewer with humour and a tendency towards exaggeration to open up new levels of meaning. In this way, the viewer is encouraged to deal with topics such as "dealing with one's own body", "attitudes to nutrition" and "obesity". As a luxury object, the car is just as ephemeral as human corporeality.

"Erwin Wurm has found an artistic language that is universal and comprehensively understood. Its frame of reference can be received in the same way everywhere. Erwin Wurm's oeuvre and work is more international, successful and consequential than that of any other living Austrian artist."