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After this phase of loss of the human proportion in sculpture, this 'dehumanisation' as the process was referred to in conservative cultural critique, followed the second phase, the concretisation of sculpture. All things could be called a sculpture: sculpture as an object from urinal to bicycle. In the 1980s furniture established itself as part of the sculptural world of objects. The abstract object became an article of everyday use. Furniture sculpture was both an object of everyday use and sculpture.
As a consequence the human body re-entered the picture. Using furniture meant sitting on it etc, hence anthropomorphism and the world of the concrete met in contemporary sculpture. Wurm was one of the pioneers of this act reconciliation. His use of media such as video and photography is unique. These media allowed him to introduce new parameters of sculpture such as duration alongside the classic ones like gravitation, weight, statics, stability, equilibrium, materiality and form. Human bodies, connected with objects and holding positions they could only maintain for minutes, are ideal expansions of sculpture into the field of media.
Peter Weibel
