Gurken

Snapshot

Giant cucumbers stand in Furtwänglerpark, between the Festival Halls and the Monchsberg cliff. They are the work of Erwin Wurm, installed in 2011 as the 10th and final project in the Salzburg Foundation’s Walk of Modern Art. They are exactly as absurd as they sound, and that is the idea.

The Story

Erwin Wurm is one of Austria’s best-known contemporary artists internationally, famous for works in which humour and conceptual rigour arrive in the same object. His One Minute Sculptures ask people to assume awkward poses with everyday props. His Fat Car series deforms vehicles into rounded, bloated shapes. The cucumbers in Furtwänglerpark work on the same principle: take an object with no cultural pretension, scale it to the size of a monument, and place it somewhere freighted with significance.

The location in Furtwänglerpark earns its share of the meaning. The park sits between the Festival Halls to the south and the sheer face of the Monchsberg to the north. The Kollegienkirche dome is visible from the benches. This is one of the most architecturally charged open spaces in the Altstadt, and Wurm has put cucumbers in it.

The piece is the 10th and final commission in the Walk of Modern Art, the Salzburg Foundation’s programme of placing permanent public sculpture across the city. It was installed in 2011. Of all the Walk’s ten projects, this is reportedly the most photographed, and the one most likely to provoke a genuine laugh rather than a respectful pause.

Visiting

• Address: Furtwänglerpark, between the Festival Halls and the Mönchsberg cliff, Altstadt
• Cost: free; always accessible
• Duration: 5 minutes to visit; longer if you linger
• Tips: Combine with the other Walk of Modern Art pieces nearby, including AEIOU. The park is also a good rest stop between the Festival area and Getreidegasse.