The absurd helps us see more - artist

A fat Ferrari, pickles on pedestals and two sausages in an intimate embrace welcome to the weird world of Erwin Wurm, one of Austria's most famous contemporary artists, who wants us to embrace the absurd.

If we look at "our world from another perspective, from the perspective of the absurd, we might see more", Wurm said as a retrospective of his work opened in Vienna's Albertina Museum.

"Everything seems normal to us," he said, but if we took another look "we might see different things and that might be interesting for us to understand things differently".

The show is a reflection on social norms, consumerist society and the diktats of appearance and even identity, with his quirky take on quintessentially Austrian staples such as sausages and pickled cucumbers alongside luxury bags on giant legs, miniature houses and stacks of clothing.