One Minute Sculptures
- Artist: Erwin Wurm
- Date: 1997
- Medium: Photograph, c-print on paper
- Dimensions: support: 450 x 300 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “One Minute Sculptures” by Erwin Wurm. The picture was taken in 1997 and is part of a long-running series that began in 1988. Wurm’s idea is simple: he gives a person written or pictorial instructions, the person holds a strange pose for exactly sixty seconds, and then the camera captures the result. The photograph becomes the lasting record, but the real artwork is the whole moment of interaction.
In this image you see a human body twisted around an everyday object—perhaps a bucket, a doorframe, or a bicycle—creating a look that feels both absurd and strangely beautiful. The humor comes from the unexpected pairing, while the performance questions how we normally use objects and how we see our own bodies in space. Wurm’s work blurs the line between sculpture and performance, inviting the viewer to pause and wonder why a minute can feel like an eternity of transformation.
See it in person
One Minute Sculptures is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
