Franz West: Furniture Works – Elusive Magazine

If you’re in need of an art exhibition that is like a breath of fresh air, Franz West’s: Furniture Works at Eva Presenhuber gallery (Löwenbräu complex) is the place to go.

The much missed Viennese, urban hippie artist continues to charm numerous visitors with his playful explorations on the aesthetics of sculpture and paintings, his so called “Passstücke”, or in English terminology as “Adaptives”, or “Prostheses”.

West thought of furnitures: chairs, tables, bookcases et cetera in sculptural terms, which in a later period of their creational process would be painted in bold colours: pink, blue, yellow, or various others shades and tones. Those objects would develop into artworks only when viewers would interact with them, by holding, touching, or even sitting on them. Interestingly enough in Eva Presenhuber’s exhibiting space you will find 3 stickers warning visitors not to touch the furnitures. Wouldn’t that interact with the process of turning those pieces into an art, West’s initial philosophy? I guess that’s when the market interferes with art and the result is confusion.

Nethertheless, the Gagosian Gallery in New York is also collaborating on this project with Eva Presenhuber, resulting in a catalogue with West’s works.

You can bathe your eyes in form, texture and colour at the Eva Presenhuber gallery in Zurich now, or wait till September 11th when the Gagosian gallery will open their exhibition at Madison Avenue.

In the press information text it states: “The exhibition presents both sculptural furniture created while the artist was still alive and pieces from the first series of reproductions.” Meaning that the Franz West Foundation is still producing editions under the direction of former co-workers. A fair rule would be that the reproductions should remain untouched, while West’s painted sculptures very much embraced.

I hope I am not promoting rule disobedience in exhibiting spaces.

Tiny place, plenty to see!
‘No pictures’, some may occasionally say.