I love Franz West. The way he glided from medium to medium (and rare to have such facility in all he touched), and even beyond–the creation of a hybrid genre called sitting sculptures (or climbing). Is it art, is it furniture, does it matter? Categories were of no interest, the works are democratic, participatory and often came with a bottle of whisky to loosen up the jaded, self-satisfied, too reined-in by the unspoken rules of art world etiquette. To me they are about freedom, a childlike impetus to make things with no regard for the possibility of failure, rather, they courted disaster. There were often newspapers strewn over the installations to mark time, make things more accessible; and, simultaneously, less precious and pretentious. He came from a background of linguistics and late to art but in the transition introduced much color, joy, and above all humor into a universe painfully lacking in a sense of wit or the absurd. West collected wine but in the end couldn’t drink, and had a classic italian sports car but couldn’t drive. He poured paint over the car and sold it as art, but i’m not so sure he figured as safe an exit route from the booze.
