Installation
Franz West
Green Fortune
In conjunction with Frieze Los Angeles, Franz West’s sculpture Green Fortune (2008) has been installed on the roof of Gagosian, Beverly Hills.
West’s interactive and highly endearing outdoor sculptures, which he began making in the 2000s, transform public spaces into sociable aesthetic environments, challenging the boundaries between art and life. Countering both the streamlined forms of industrialized objects and the bombastic nature of much public sculpture, these amorphous works often recall childlike drawings or twisted intestines with their contorted spirals and curves. Their monochrome surfaces are painted in lurid, unnatural colors like bubblegum pink and lemon drop yellow—shades the artist claims were inspired by children’s pajamas, public bathrooms, and other unexpected sources. From February 15 through 18, viewers are invited to sit on Green Fortune during gallery hours.
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Franz West, Green Fortune, 2008 © Archiv Franz West and © Estate Franz West. Photo: Jeff McLane
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Installation
Franz West
November 16, 2023–March 15, 2024
Gagosian Shop, London
A selection of paper-based works and furniture by Franz West is on view at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade. Installed throughout both floors of the space, the exhibited works are imbued with the Austrian artist’s riotous fusion of sincerity and absurdity. West’s series of drawings, posters, and collages, conjured from photographs, tawdry advertisements, and soft porn, possess the same raucous aesthetic and wit as his plaster and papier-mâché sculptures and his elegant pieces of functional furniture, which further expand the relationship between art and audience.
Franz West installation at Gagosian Shop, London, November 16, 2023–March 15, 2024. Artwork © Archiv Franz West, © Estate Franz West. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Performance
Mike Kelley and Franz West
To Be Read Aloud (À haute voix)
October 13, October 20, and November 21, 2018, 9pm
Centre Pompidou, Paris
www.centrepompidou.fr
To Be Read Aloud (À haute voix) (1999) is an experimental theater piece by artists Mike Kelley and Franz West. On the occasion of West’s retrospective at Centre Pompidou, director Fanny de Chaillé presents a reenactment of this work—a dialogue in which the artists reflect on the development of their practices within the avant-garde scenes of Los Angeles and Vienna since the 1970s—within West’s installation Auditorium (1992). The event is free with museum admission.
Mike Kelley and Franz West’s poster design for performance of To Be Read Aloud (À haute voix) (1999). Artwork © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; and © Archiv Franz West
In Conversation
Oscar Murillo and Ben Luke
On Franz West
Tuesday, October 10, 2023, 6pm
Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London
Join Gagosian for a conversation between Oscar Murillo and arts writer, critic, and broadcaster Ben Luke in conjunction with Franz West: Papier, the gallery’s presentation of paper-based works by Franz West (1947–2012) at Frieze Masters 2023. The pair will discuss Murillo’s collaboration in selecting the works on view, which date from the 1970s through the 2010s, as well as his personal experiences meeting the late artist in London in the late 2000s and the enduring impact West continues to have on artists today.
Left: Oscar Murillo. Photo: Stuart Leech, Turner Contemporary, courtesy the artist. Right: Ben Luke
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