Franz West, 1947-2012
Franz West, Worktable in aspic, 2008
The Austrian artist Franz West passed away on July 25. Peter Schjeldahl‘s obit in the New Yorker is a poignant and spot on read:
The death in Vienna on Thursday of the sneaky-great Austrian artist Franz West—at the age of sixty-five, after a long illness—saddens me to a degree that I’m afraid needs explaining. The circle of West’s fans to which I belong, while sizable in the art world, is minuscule in the wider American culture, despite numerous shows and public-art installations here, over the years. His art has vastly influenced recent American sculptors, such as the wonderful Rachel Harrison, who invest rough-hewn constructions with exquisite humor. But most critics have given up on highlighting such formal connections, at a time when art talk is bedizened by money and gossip.
What impedes people about West, I believe, isn’t avant-gardish difficulty but a kind of charm that is hard to credit. His very accessibility rouses suspicions, like the too-friendly approaches of an oddly dressed stranger. You don’t learn to like West. You become aware of your resistance to him and take the chance of letting it collapse.
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