Franz West (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series)

About this book

Emerging from the 1960s generation of Viennese Aktionists who used their own bodies in their art Franz West (b.1947) is an internationally renowned Austrian artist who incorporates the bodies of his spectators into his work. Often inviting visitors to participate in or even wear his sculptures West encourages us to explore our involvement in contemporary art and its presentations. The resulting works are not always aesthetically pleasing. His oddly-hued plaster forms called Passtcke (Adaptives)- ordinary objects wrapped in gauze and dipped in plaster - are sculptures to be worn by the viewer that contort the body into bizarre positions. His public works include his contribution to Documenta IX in 1992 in which he set out row after row of metal-framed couches draped with rugs and fabrics for public use in an open square behind the Fridericianum: a new kind of public art for weary museum visitors. Drawing inspiration from the history of art (reclining icons such as Manets Olympia) psychoanalysis (Freuds sofa in Wests native Vienna) and a socially interactive type of art these works are at once both introvertedly personal and extrovertedly public. Austrian critic and curator Robert Fleck surveys Wests work and discusses the influence of such thinkers as Freud and Wittgenstein. The founding editor of Europes most influential contemporary art journal Parkett Bice Curiger interviews West in one of the artists furniture installations. In the Focus Assistant Director of Art and Public Programs at Washington D.C.s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Neal Benezra concentrates on Wests Etude de couleur (1991) an important signpost for Wests oeuvre of the past decade. West has chosen a text by Kathryn Norberg on the history of prostitutes historical figures who like artists occupy an ambiguous public position in society. Wests writings include a sculpture/text published here for the first time.