Erwin Wurm – Big Kastenmann (2012), The Standard, High Line
Austrian surrealist Erwin Wurm has a penchant for exploring the detritus of our everyday lives, taking common objects and distorting their forms, sizes and positions to create absurd commentaries on modern existence. Â Creating bizarre portraits of our commodities and ourselves, Wurm challenges the conventions of contemporary consumer culture.
Erwin Wurm – Big Kastenmann (2012), The Standard, High Line
The Standard Hotel has commissioned Wurm to create a massive rendition of his Kastenmann (translated as “Big Box Man”) sculpture for exhibition in their outdoor plaza.  Depicting a boxy, paint stained jacket sitting on top of a naked pair of human legs, Big Kastenmann stands 18 feet tall, and recalls a number of Wurm’s distorted human sculptures.  Turning the clothed human into a rigid, boxy form, Wurm shines an unnerving light on the values we place on our possessions; clothes expanded to consume their owners.
Erwin Wurm – Big Kastenmann (2012), The Standard, High Line
The Standard is also selling a limited run of 100 prints of Pee On Someone’s Rug, from Wurm’s How To Be Politically Incorrect series.  Big Kastenmann is on view until November 2nd.
Erwin Wurm – Pee On Somebody’s Rug (2003) from the How To Be Politically Incorrect Series (2003), The Standard
Erwin Wurm “Big Kastenmann” (2012). Courtesy of the Artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. Photography by Adrian Gaut.
—D. Creahan
