Franz West

The engagement with his works doesn’t extend to the work itself as an object but also to the parameters around its engagement. Reading around his works spoke of ‘enrich[ing] the visitor’s experience’ (Frieze, 2018) in the example of Passstücke, this work was often installed in dressing rooms, so the audience was able to play with these works uninhibited behind dressing room curtains, ‘thereby opening up a dialogue between the visible and the invisible, the sense of sight and the sense of touch’ (Frieze, 2018). This engagement extended outside the gallery and into public spaces with large-scale abstract sculptures that look as though they are worming their way around, becoming functional things like seats and benches. Cartoon and totem-like, these were sociable sculptures, sociable with all the defining attributes – companionable, gregarious, jovial. Not just for sitting on but being with, they present ‘a realised conception of bodies interacting directly with art objects, while rejecting the traditionally passive relationship between artwork and audience. (Gagosian, 2012)

However, there is something lewd and sardonic about West’s work which is an aesthetic I don’t share. This carries over into his use of ‘bad colour’ described with words like ‘shrill,’ ‘queasy’, ‘sullied’, or ‘insipid’ (Kalina, R. 2019). But I do find the fact that his ‘garish pastel pinks and greens…recall the materials his mother used in her dental practice’ (Frieze, 2018). I like this idea of colour recalling. Overall, I think his works have a far more resounding clash than my own, but it is this focus on the body that is relevant to my current research. ‘The body doesn’t discriminate between toy and artwork, divan, and sculpture’ (ArtReview, 2018), and this is a concept I need to consider more.