Seating Sculpture

“As a body, you stand or walk around the sculpture. It is almost equivalent to your own corporeality, to taking up space in one’s own three-dimensionality in a defined art space. As far as sculpture is concerned, the viewer is more or less obliged to engage in movement.” – Franz West (F. West, quoted in R. Fleck, B. Curiger and N. Benezra, Franz West, London 1999, pp. 8-9)

Collapsing the distinction between subject and object is of primary importance for West. All of his sculptures, touchable or not, seek to activate the body of the spectator. Constantly challenging the audience's expectations, Untitled, is an amalgam of sorts between furniture and sculpture. Unlike his earlier furniture work, it does not closely resemble any standard piece of furniture. Instead, it consists of a low to the ground, elongated globule that call to mind bodily organs and other amorphous forms, depicted in an enthusiastic and friendly, baby green hue. Like all of West's work, Untitled is not a piece to be admired from afar. It has a practical and interactive function: it is an abstracted, amorphous bench that teeters on the edge of humor and grotesquerie – a tribute to Franz West’s creative genius.