FRANZ WEST: DIE ALUSKULPTUR, edited by Klaus Thoman with text by Klaus Thoman, Eva Badura-Triska, Andreas Reiter Raabe and Franz West

Walther König, 2000, First edition, 88 pp., 10 3/4 X 8 3/4", Hardcover

Very good

"Wuste“, "Qulze“, "Qwertze“ or "Patzen“ are the onomatopoeic names given by multiple documenta and Biennale participant Franz West to his amorphous sculptures, which were set up in the park of the Renaissance Castle Schloss Ambras in Tyrol. The viewer may associate these word formations with a spectrum between sausage, bulge, swelling, pompous, etc. West invites his audience to leave the static posture of the counterpart and to use the objects to become part of the artwork with a moving body: His works called „Sitzwuste,“ for example, take on the function of park benches. As with his „Passstücke“ from the 1980s, there is an ironic skepticism behind Franz West's desire to break taboos by juxtaposing a deliberately banal and unserious reality with the beauty of the park.