Franz West

Franz West - Lessons with Bruno Gironcoli; first successes with the Passstücke

Franz West was born in Vienna on 16th February 1947. His half-brother, 17 years his elder, was Otto Kobalek, a Viennese original who became known as a "working-class poet" and belonged to the circle of artists around the actor Helmut Qualtinger. Franz West laid the foundations for his career as an artist by studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where Bruno Gironcoli was his teacher. His first important works were the Passstücke, small forms of plaster, metal or papier-mâché that seemed to have no particular shape and could be placed on the body as a kind of prosthesis or support - the artist saw these unusual objects as visualisations of neuroses. Franz West was finally able to organise his first exhibitions in the 1980s.

The work of art as a dialogue partner and means of communication

For Franz West, art was not simply a representation or staging, but rather a form of communication. Through his works, the artist wanted to speak to his audience, evoke an interactive discourse and set things in motion. With his exhibition Autotheater, West even invited visitors to undress and, naked, to keep his sculptures company. West had an unusual preference for the particular pink colour of denture gums - possibly an inheritance from his mother, who worked as a dentist. West's bulging sculptures often appeared clunky, misshapen and unfinished. With subtle irony, however, the artist was able to present precisely such works under the name Result. Sometimes it was not easy to distinguish between mockery and self-confidence when Franz West summarised two exhibits under the title Two good sculptures at last.

Teacher and pragmatist; not uncontroversial as a painter

Franz West taught as a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main for two years. However, his vocation lay in practical art, which he sometimes drew from quite unconventional inspiration. For example, a whole series of bizarre chair sculptures were created out of his anger at a lack of seating - at his own vernissage of all places. From time to time, West also tried his hand at painting, but these could not always match the brilliance of his sculptures. West had plenty of exhibitions, took part in Documenta in Kassel several times, and produced the Austrian contribution to the Venice Biennale in 1992. He also created the large-format work Drei - Vorgang ins Temperament for the Vienna State Opera as part of the exhibition series Der Eiserne Vorhang. Franz West received an almost incalculable number of prizes and awards for his work, including the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale for his life's work.

Frank West died on 25th July 2012 in his hometown of Vienna, which had been an important centrepoint and home his whole life. He rests with his wife, the Georgian artist Tamuna Sirbiladze, who died of cancer in 2016, in a grave of honour at Vienna's Central Cemetery.