Franz West

For 30 years now, Viennese artist Franz West has been in his own artistic territory, and for the last 20, he has been one of the most influential working sculptors, as confirmed by a solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1997. Through his "Passstücke" (passport pieces or adapters) of the 1970s, his furniture assemblies of the 1980s and bright exterior sculptures of the 1990s, West regularly irritates viewers with parody and outlandishness, and impresses with surprising solutions to the old social utopia of art and life. The implied invitation to touch his works disrupts the museum dynamic of velvet rope and burglar alarm, and leads to different levels of engagement--bodily, linguistic, philosophical and psychological--in which the artist's sense of humor shines through. This introduction to West's oeuvre is accompanied by commentaries, interpretation and details about his most recent work, developed over the past few years.