(Vienna 1947–2012)
Creativity: Furniture Reversal, 1999, contains: 2 chairs, 1 table, lamp (black), 8 rolls of duct tape in various colours, DVD and video tape as well as further supplies (listed on the enclosed assembly instruction). On the table construction signed and numbered F West 17/30 (+ 10 artist’s proofs), label on the DVD: “Brooke Alexander, New York”, table construction is part of the packaging which includes all the parts, c. 63 x 95 x 73 cm

Registered:
Franz West Privatstiftung, Vienna

See:
Franz West, Autotheater, Museum Ludwig, Cologne;
Madre-Museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples;
Kunsthaus Graz (publication of the eponymous Franz West retrospective exhibition), DuMont, 2009, p. 147

Current relevance of Franz West’s furniture and its impact

Furniture installations such as Creativity: furniture reversal (1998, edition 30), where users can personalise a furniture ensemble with coloured tape and use it collectively – do not only have to do with the design aesthetic of the 1990s, they are also in accordance with the artistic zeitgeist. Practitioners of the so-called Design Art or the Esthétique Relationnelle cross the boundaries between visual and applied arts, confront the history of modernist design, and create exhibition situations that question the neutrality of the White Cube. These often interactive, user-friendly furnished environments, which generate an easy-going relationship between viewer and artwork, are nevertheless unthinkable without Franz West. It is surely no coincidence that Liam Gillick published an article about West in 1994. For West plays more than a mirroring role – he signalled the issues of the generation of Tobias Rehberger, Liam Gillick, Jorge Pardo and Rirkrit Tiravanija and prepared the way for them.
Katia Baudin – from the aforementioned literature