#FRANZ WEST METAL WORK SERIES#

Zdenek Felix said: “West’s adaptives are situated somewhere between the poles of body and psyche. Subsequently Passstücke has been translated as “adaptive” but this does not fully capture its original source as a technical term meaning “parts that fit into each other.” These early sculptures function as prosthetics for an intimate version of the extreme Actionist spectacles of the mid-seventies in Vienna. West maintained that the viewer must engage with, handle, the sculptures in order to fully experience their “ergonomic” nature.

In the early 1970s Franz West began making small-scale assemblages incorporating found materials such as cardboard, bandages, and wire, which he then covered with a coat of plaster and white paint. The exhibition includes sculptures and works on paper from the early 1980s to more recent works related to the central motif of the Passstücke in West’s art. The artist has participated several times in Documenta, the Venice Biennale, and Skulptur Projekte in Münster.Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition by Franz West. His first shows took place in the 1980s in Vienna, Frankfurt, and New York. The retrospective character of the works chosen is complemented by early, bold gouaches and melancholy pencil and roller-pen drawings from 1972.įranz West was born in Vienna in 1947, and studied at Vienna's Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Once again, the adaptive gesture comes through - alien text material is combined with his own, or adapted to it.

#FRANZ WEST METAL WORK SERIES#

For example, he equipped Documenta 9 in 1992 with 72 carpet-covered sofas, and at Documenta 10 participants of the event series '100 Days - 100 Guests' were seated on his colourful canvas-covered chairs.Īdditionally, the exhibition at Arndt & Partner will include collages from the 1970s, where West combined textual and visual material from magazines and newspapers with painting, completing the content with his own titles. Is this art or an object for daily use? Hardly an important art event can do without chairs made by Franz West. West calls the furniture he has been creating since 1987 'adaptives for the human body at rest.' He thus takes up the practice of early Vienna Actionism, opening up new layers of meaning by humorously linking the body and the artistic object. His engagement with sculpture began with the so-called Passtücke, or 'adaptives': freestanding, amorphous shapes made of plaster, papier-mâché, or wire that could be attached to the body as supports or prostheses, thus underlining the interactive character of his art. They give a sense of the patina, which also might result from having been for a while in private collections, where they might well have been objects of direct engagement. The fundamental idea of the Austrian artist Franz West - to both communicate as well as interact with and through art - is expressed in various ways in the exhibited works, and indeed in a certain way by their aura.

In this retrospective exhibition, works are being shown from all periods of the artist's career, including fragile papier-mâché sculptures, collages on newsprint in artist's frames, and Franz West furniture. Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, BerlinĪrndt & Partner Berlin is pleased to present a selection of works by Franz West from various private collections. “Works from private collections (1972-2006)” In 2011 he was awarded the lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennial. Numerous solo exhibitions of his work took place, for example at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997), Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2002), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2003), Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK), Vienna (2008) and in 2010 at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Museo d´Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Napels, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz. From 1992 to 1994 he was professor at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. In 1993 he was commissioned to create the contribution for the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial. West studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, at Bruno Gironcoli.

Communication and interaction with and through his art is always a central topic of his work.

Thus illustrating neurosis: “I believe, if one could see neurosis, this is how they would look like“. The so called “Paßstücke“ were among his first body of works: freestanding, transportable, undefined forms made of plaster, papier mâché or metal which could be leaned or attached to the body as support, prosthesis or excrescence. Franz West had an early interest in sculpture.

Franz west metal work