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 piece is a colour photograph from 1997, part of a long‑running series that began in 1988. Wurm invites ordinary people, sometimes the artist himself, to hold a deliberately odd pose for exactly sixty seconds while he supplies written and pictorial instructions. The resulting image freezes an absurd interaction between body and everyday object—a bucket, a doorframe, a bicycle—creating a still life that feels both comic and thought‑provoking. The photograph is the record, but the true work lies in the fleeting performance that precedes it. Through these temporary ‘sculptures’ Wurm explores the limits of form, space and the way we perceive the body and its surroundings. The series blurs the line between performance, sculpture and photography, challenging viewers to reconsider what a sculpture can be and how humor can reveal deeper truths about society and self‑expression. It’s a playful yet incisive reminder that art can be as much about the moment as the image.
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.
