Franz West at Tate Modern
They’re sculptures. They’re chairs. No, wait, they’re…sculpchairs. Installation view of ‘Franz West’ at Tate Modern, 2019
Franz West was a child of post-war Vienna. Like so many Austrian artists of his generation, his thought and his art were shaped by the sense of living in the aftermath of unspeakable atrocities, and by the suspicion that the society around him had chosen to hide from its history through an act of collective, willed amnesia. The Vienna Aktionists- Hermann Nitsch, Gunter Brus, Rudolf Schwarzkogler- had met this complacency head-on, through violent, degrading forms of ritualistic performance art; West, by contrast, opted instead for an anarchic irreverence, undercutting the hierarchies of high art with a playful aesthetic that embraced collaboration, participation, and a blurring of the lines between sculpture, furniture, painting, performance, collage and graphic design.
Admirable attitudes, without a doubt: but when these attitudes become form, what are we left with? Enough to mount a retrospective across several large galleries in Tate Modern’s Blavatnik Building, apparently, with plinths and room dividers specially designed by West’s friend and sometimes collaborator, Sarah Lucas, spilling over into the courtyard outside; but Instantloveland would be failing in its duty if it didn’t own up to feeling a little, well, irreverent towards all this irreverence. There’s plenty here, but as to how much of it merits more than a passing glance…Do the photo-collages on painted cardboard do anything more than wallow in their teenager’s-bedroom-wall kitschiness? Do the huge, looping abstract sculptures offer any more sustenance than the bubblegum that inspired their high-gloss painted finish? And do his ‘Adaptives’ (small works intended to be picked up and played with) really open up fresh territory for ‘interactive sculpture’, or are they simply so lacking in visual interest that manhandling them is the only option left?
Exhibition runs until June 2nd 2019.
Installation view of ‘Franz West’ at Tate Modern, 2019