VIENNA.- The ALBERTINA is honoring Franz West (1947–2012) with a major retrospective for the artist's upcoming 80th birthday. West counts among those pioneers who revolutionized the very concept of sculpture by fundamentally redefining it. Already in the 1970s, he shifts the focus from the autonomy of the art object to the complex interrelations of material, body, perception, language, and social space. The radicalism of his work lies in how he dissolves the categories that have defined sculpture ever since classical Modernism: "Art would then no longer be […] something to be viewed, but something to be handled," says West to describe this redefinition of the relationship between artwork and the public.

Participatory and body-based art: knocking sculpture off its pedestal

A central point of reference in West's work is Viennese Actionism. Despite the boundary-crossing performative impulses that West playfully integrates into his work, he always remains committed to the tangible object. With the development of the Adaptives—prosthetics-like structures that only unfold their meaning through use—he formulates a relational concept of sculpture that connects the object to the body, to space and perception. Art opens itself up through interaction with the viewer; by wearing, holding, turning, putting on, or posing with it, the sculpture turns into a situation, a happening that reflects viewers' state of mind. By enabling active engagement with it, West brings sculpture down from its pedestal.

Drawing on Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious, the artist describes the Adaptives as "neuroses made visible." They are meant to be projection surfaces for inner conflicts and social conditioning—art thus becomes a way of self-observation, an opportunity to reflect on social norms and role models.

Even in his early work—whose bold experimentalism would inform his entire sculptural oeuvre—West challenges traditional categories of the visual arts: Unlike what the unfinished project of Modernism demands, he seeks not to merge art with practical life but rather places it in a broader philosophical and psychological context.

The ideas he developed in his Adaptives are later transposed by West into furniture objects of steel and aluminum, as well as into various outdoor sculptures, most of them intended for use. These are hybrid forms between fine art and applied art that involve viewers' bodies in the work of art: sitting, lying down, or resting becomes part of the aesthetic experience.

The nonconformist artist, whose work in the overlap area of sculpture, performance, drawing, object art, and installation consistently resists unequivocal categorization, was represented multiple times at documenta and the Venice Biennale. His formal openness and innovative spirit are central to the sustained impact of his body of work, for which he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2011, the year before his death.

Appreciating the "marginalized" and an aesthetic of the unstrenuous

From early on, West's work is characterized by how the artist uses objects and materials of everyday use, found objects, or "worthless" materials to subvert existing aesthetic hierarchies. By giving value to things overlooked or thrown away, West establishes a more democratic aesthetic—the critique of elitism in art also reflects in his choice of materials: papier-mâché, gauze, advertising stuff, remnants of paint, newspaper clippings, or metal scraps. This approach is closely linked to the interest he takes in the margins of society, psychological borderline areas, and the culturally disparaged. His work can be read as an artistic exploration of these areas, tabooed as they often are in societal discourse—whether it's neurotic behaviors, sexual innuendo, bodily insecurities, or social exclusion. With West, the engagement with the "useless," the nonconforming and seemingly worthless turns into analytic social critique. His informal aesthetic of imperfection is fed by formal openness, irony, and subversive energy.

This encompassing exhibition of works dating from the early 1970s all the way up until West's death in 2012 is the largest retrospective of the Austrian artist to date. Starting out from the Adaptives, it follows the development trajectory of later bodies of work like the furniture objects, the lemurs, and the aluminum sculptures. Complementing the show are numerous picture walls of works on paper and collages, which West uses—like the sculptures—as catalysts of sensibilities.

Curators: Angela Stief and Constanze Johanna Malissa.