![]() In 1970’s he developed small sculptures called Passstucke or Adaptives. Franz West Interacting with one of his sculptures I feel childlike around his work and want to dance…. I really like his work! I find it funny, witty and joyful. It’s an interesting exhibition and I spent some hours there. The notes say that ” he combined an irreverent and playful approach to sculpture, collage and furniture.” Papier mache was his preferred material and the colours are bright and child-like. So who is this Wunderkind? He was born in Austria in 1947 and died in 2012. I went to the gallery to see the exhibition of Dorothea Tanning (see my article in the Arts section, May 14th) But you can’t miss the sculpture of Franz West. Have you been there? What did you think? Grim and Grungy or the perfect backdrop for contemporary and modern art? It’s a colossal structure and deserves a whole article in its own right. Well, Franz West is actually very hard to miss once you discover him and the Tate Modern isn’t exactly a hidden gallery….but it did take me some time to find that it is actually on the Thames at Bankside, among all the construction that London seems to be enjoying at present.īut find it I did and I was quite excited by the Tate Modern architecture itself given it’s a re-purposed massive, power station where even the oil tanks have been reused. Projekte in Münster in 1997, the documenta X in Kassel in 1997 and the 1997 Biennale of Venice, as well as in numerous exhibitions in distinguished museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1997, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1998 and the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK), Vienna, and the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, in 2001.Bumping into a quietly announced art exhibition in unexpected places is one of the joys of travel. His work has been shown in many international exhibitions of contemporary art, such as Skulptur. The sculptures will be presented together with collages and poster designs for the exhibition.įranz West lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Franz West’s conception of sculpture truly realizes Umberto Eco’s theory of the “open work” in that the sculptures are only ever completed in the viewer’s head. The brightly painted aluminum sculptures, called “Sitzwuste” (Sitting Heaps), were originally designed for the Ambras Castle Park near Innsbruck and have now found their way into the gallery as indoor sculptures. The outdoor sculptures and collages on view at the Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber were made over the past year specifically for this exhibition. This decision forced the artist to abandon materials that are easy to handle, like plaster, papier-mâché, and polyester, and turn to one that is more weatherproof, aluminum. In the late 1990s, Franz West turned to working on a larger scale, producing sculptural works for an outdoor setting. ![]() These furniture sculptures are a way for West to address the ambivalent position of his works between autonomous work of art and object of utility. West has created striking resting places for sites like the rooftop of the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, the open-air cinema at the documenta IX and the great hall of the documenta X. His chairs and couches, made of welded steel with slipcovers of fabric or carpet, are a logical continuation of the “Passstücke”. They are places for the viewer to take a rest, to sit or even lie down in, extending the interactive relationship between work and viewer. ![]() In the past fifteen years, West has won wide acclaim with his environments of furniture/sculpture. Many such actions were documented by Franz West in videos and photos. This way, the usually passive viewer is temporarily turned into an active participant. These amorphous sculptures, with their rough, crusty surfaces, are intended to be put on by the viewer, who thus enters into a discourse with the oddly shaped objects. Already his “Passstücke” (Fitting Pieces) of the late 1970s were designed for the bodily involvement of the viewer. Most of Franz West’s works are intended to be actively experienced with the body. To Franz West, art is a thoroughly dynamic and multi-functional field open to all sides, and he likes to blur the distinctions between art-historical categories. ![]() His work is extremely varied, ranging as it does from video, drawing, collage, poster design, object, sculpture, and furniture to installation and environment. He is widely regarded as one of the most individual sculptural artists of his generation and is among the most celebrated contemporary artists. 1947) has been a prominent presence in the international art world since the mid-1980s. ![]()
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