Melissa Faithful for Art-Sheep
In honor of Karlsruhe’s 300th anniversary celebration, Austrian sculptor and performance artist Erwin Wurm created an extremely realistic, yet dysmorphic sculpture of a Mercedes Benz truck named “Truck”.
“For the city’s anniversary, Wurm has a bright red truck reverse up a wall of the Weinbrennerhaus. Elegantly bent upwards at the center, the Truck appears to effortlessly overcome its own weight, and to adapt itself in conformity with the shape of the representative building. Owing to its physical distortion, this utility vehicle assumes a sculptural character, while its function now becomes of secondary importance to its artistic form. The façade of the house also loses its original meaning: becoming both parking space and street for the truck, the wall serves less as a shell for the interior but more as a stage for art,” is stated on the website of the ZKM |Center for Art and Media.
In honor of the German city’s 300 years, Karlsruhe didn’t just receive a sculpture, it also received a parking ticket, issued by a traffic warden, without knowledge of the vehicle’s artistic merit. This is a hilarious case of how public art can and should interact with its surroundings, people and local authorities.
