Erwin Wurm - Fifty-Nine Positions

Filmed in 1992 using a stationary camera, ‘59 Positions’ is a 20-minute video shot in an empty room. It shows fragments of actions, each lasting just a few seconds. The viewer glimpses Erwin Wurm and others dressed in nonsensical ways, creating forms that appear like contemporary sculptures. Their bodies are contorted into ridiculous poses, as if guided by a strange choreography. With the video, Wurm aimed to explore whether a physical action can become a sculpture and, if so, at what point that transition takes place. Fascinated by the outcome, he later decided to create the series of colour photographs presented in this book, reconnecting with the immediacy of this medium.