ERWIN WURM
HOT DOG BUS

K11 MUSEA, HONG KONG, CHINA
11 OCTOBER – 27 OCTOBER 2019

Making its Asia debut, HOT DOG BUS is curated under the direction of K11 Group founder Adrian Cheng. The work can be seen at the entrance to K11 MUSEA, adjacent to the Sunken Plaza, an immersive amphitheater-inspired event space. Originally commissioned by Public Art Fund, HOT DOG BUS is a hard-to-miss bright yellow coloured mobile food kiosk selling hot dogs while disguised as a playful sculpture.

Along with the recent opening of K11 MUSEA, the world’s first cultural-retail destination, Cheng envisions the addition ofHOT DOG BUS will help to reactivate Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront – an area that has historically played a vital role in the exchange of ideas and the confluence of cultures in Hong Kong.

Prior to its new home in Victoria Dockside, Wurm’sHOT DOG BUS was first exhibited at The Museum of Wolfsburg in Germany as a Curry Bus serving local fast food dish currywurst and was later re-imagined asHOT DOG BUS when it traveled to New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park serving hot dogs to visitors. The quirky bus is part of a larger series known as Wurm’s “Fat Car Series” (2001–2004), challenging the traditional notions of sculpture, rethinking our food, consumer culture, and well-being while reinventing everyday objects such as the Volkswagen Microbus.
HOT DOG BUS, 2018
VW T2b, mixed media
220 × 250 × 550 cm

Wurm described the ideas behind this specific iteration of the interactive art installation, “HOT DOG BUS is a participatory piece of art as I always want my work to give people the opportunity to interact with it. I was therefore very excited to learn about its inclusion in the art collection of Adrian Cheng’s K11 MUSEA, which shares the same ethos of making art and culture accessible. I can’t wait to see how this waterfront community will react to and engage with the sculpture.”

The artist added, “I’m going to enjoy watching the Hongkongers enjoy the hot dogs and thinking…will enough of these make me look like the vessel they were served in.”

© Image courtesy of the artist and K11 MUSEA

FEATURED ARTIST

ERWIN WURM

Erwin Wurm (b. 1954 in Bruck an der Mur, Austria) lives and works in Vienna. His oeuvre comprises sculptures, photography, video, performance, and painting. His works often involve everyday objects such as cars, houses, clothing, luxury bags, and food products, with which he ironically comments on consumerism and capitalist mass production. Wurm gained widespread popularity in the 1990s with his “One Minute Sculptures”. Museum pedestals are displayed and left devoid of any work, so that the audience can take the place of the sculpture for one minute, according to the artist’s whimsical instructions. With this ironic yet radical gesture, Wu...
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