Franz West - Contemporary Art Evening London Thursday, February 11, 2010 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Franz West’s furniture is perfectly functional; the chairs, sofas, screens, desks or beds are often remarkably comfortable, contrary to what their appearance might lead the viewer to expect. This is not, however, applied art fulfilling decorative and architectural functions, for these items of furniture are simultaneously also sculptures and Adaptives of a different kind. They are collaged from the same amorphous, non-formal materials as the sculptures, and share the same libidinous bodily and psycho-perceptual content. The furniture also has the same functionless existence as the sculptural objects. Applied and pure function, furniture and sculpture, are thus inextricably intertwined in these works. Yet at the same time, this is not some postmodern game being played with figure design in the visual arts. The furniture is like an extended Adaptive which replaces the viewer’s conscious decision to act through the artist’s invitation to sit down in the middle of a museum. These furniture-sculptures opened out the whole concept of West’s work, leading to his current environments and collective works, and extending the spatial dimension of the body originally addressed in the early Adaptives.”
     
    (Robert Fleck, ‘Sex and the Modern Sculptor’ in Franz West, London, 1999, pp. 56–57)

36

Untitled (Bench)

1993
Steel bench covered with foam upholstery, foam pillows and white linen sheet.
110 x 634 x 80 cm. (43 1/4 x 249 3/8 x 31 1/2 in).
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for £61,250

Contemporary Art Evening

12 Feb 2010
London