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Franz West
Installation view of Worktable and Workbench 2006 at Palazzo Grassi
© the artist

At the Palazzo Grassi you can see a selection of Francois Pinault’s collection, in Sequence One curated by Alison Gingeras [See Tate Etc issues 1 & 6]. Featuring works that Pinault has acquired over the last 10 years as well as new commissions it includes a good collection of works by David Hammons, (such as I Dig the Way This Dude Looks, 1971), early works by the underrated Martial Raysse, as well as pieces by Marlene Dumas, Richard Prince, Mike Kelley, Urs Fischer and Franz West. To coincide with his work on view at Sequence I in Think With the Senses as well as Hamster Wheel (curated by the artist) in the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale, Tate Etc talks, briefly, to Franz West.

TATE ETC The installation for the pieces in Palazzo Grassi - mixed older and more recent work - how did this come about? Was it between you and the curator Alison Gingeras?

FRANZ WEST I’ve been mixing my old and new things for a while, as far as I get a hand on older things. The first 20 years I hated my older works, then I got interested in comparing them with newer things. For me it’s like jumping around in my past (actually in my present and past). So it’s like a diary.

TATE ETC The new pieces that you are showing in Venice have clear scatalogical connotations - why this interest in the bodily functions?

FRANZ WEST This seems to be a misunderstanding, I am not interested in the body. I am not sure that I have a body. (I am interested in philosophy!). I have made passstücke/adaptives, these were sculptures you could handle, but gallerists did not like that. So I make furniture to put them in extravagant places – an extraordinary piece in extraordinary position. I thought this I would like to be done by myself (for instance to lie around in a museum) and I thought I am not the only one who is interested in this so... (though Goethe and his followers thought art should not be touched, but I thought that it should be touched ...)

TATE ETC Why work in Papier-Mache? I know that one of your recent works was shown next to a Henry Moore bronze - is it to create the opposite of monumentality?

FRANZ WEST I started out without much money and without a studio, so it found this material that is neither stinky nor makes spots. I also had seen Japanese plates and furniture that was made of papiermaché and lacquer. It was 80 years old and in good conditions, so I thought it’s good to work with. Afterwards I was at Art School and I changed to polyester – whih is ugly. You have to plan the work, so you cannot change suddenly change your mind and do a different piece. But, after about 5 years I got an allergy against polyester so had to stop using it. Then, I made works in aluminum and even bronze. I hated these materials and the work I made looked like the works of artists I hate. So I went back to using papiermaché. That’s a material that few really cannot touch or handle. Now I also make monumental outside sculptures that are big – even monumental, and I think also ridiculous…Ridiculousness should not be the main theme, but of course it appears ridiculous.

TATE ETC I find your work uplifting and humorous. How do you see it?

FRANZ WEST Me too! For 30 years or more I think the work is either uplifting or funny. I have wanted a syntheses of these two conditions (which is not Kantian), but I think it works.