News / Events

November 16, 2023–March 15, 2024
Gagosian Shop, London

A selection of paper-based works and furniture by Franz West is on view at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade. Installed throughout both floors of the space, the exhibited works are imbued with the Austrian artist’s riotous fusion of sincerity and absurdity. West’s series of drawings, posters, and collages, conjured from photographs, tawdry advertisements, and soft porn, possess the same raucous aesthetic and wit as his plaster and papier-mâché sculptures and his elegant pieces of functional furniture, which further expand the relationship between art and audience.

October 12–15, 2023, booth E01
Regent’s Park, London
www.frieze.com

Gagosian is pleased to participate in the 2023 edition of Frieze Masters with a presentation of paper-based works by Franz West that spans his career from the early 1970s through the 2010s, conceived in association with the Estate of Franz West and through the initiative of the Franz West Privatstiftung. Chosen in collaboration with artist Oscar Murillo, the selection in London highlights West’s irreverence and ingenuity.

Collaging and overpainting imagery from print media, West disrupted the pictorial continuity of his sources and confounded expectations between public display and subjective experience. Blending abstraction and figuration, West’s works on paper exhibit an absurdist wit, with some exploring a mischievous vulgarity through an emphasis on bodily functions and erotic themes.

In conjunction with Frieze Los Angeles, Franz West’s sculpture Green Fortune (2008) has been installed on the roof of Gagosian, Beverly Hills.

West’s interactive and highly endearing outdoor sculptures, which he began making in the 2000s, transform public spaces into sociable aesthetic environments, challenging the boundaries between art and life. Countering both the streamlined forms of industrialized objects and the bombastic nature of much public sculpture, these amorphous works often recall childlike drawings or twisted intestines with their contorted spirals and curves. Their monochrome surfaces are painted in lurid, unnatural colors like bubblegum pink and lemon drop yellow—shades the artist claims were inspired by children’s pajamas, public bathrooms, and other unexpected sources. From February 15 through 18, viewers are invited to sit on Green Fortune during gallery hours.