Franz West

Private Collection, Vienna
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1996

Colour: The colour in the original is neon yellow in the original. Please refer to the contemporary department for further information. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Visible only when examined verso, the work is screwed to the backing board. Very close inspection reveals a few hairline cracks in isolated places towards the lower edge with some minute and unobtrusive associated specks of loss, likely inherent to the artist's choice of media and working process. There are two very small and reversible spots of inpainting towards the upper left corner. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no further evidence of restoration.
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In a veritable deluge of material conjunction ranging from dripping acrylic paint to papier mâché and plaster, Franz West’s Plato’s Sonne Skizze (“Plato’s Sun Sketch”) reveals a mesmerising textural surface imbued with brimming colours full of light and dynamism. Merging elements of painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, the present work is testament to West’s open and unconventional approach to different media, which in turn resulted in a highly experimental and diversified oeuvre. In keeping with the artist’s most engaging quality, the present work emphasises the autonomy of form and movement by deliberately embracing the elements of chance and coincidence as an aesthetic maxim. The resulting biomorphic forms that manifest through a thick and undulating surface deeply resonate with Arte Povera’s appropriation of used and found material as well as the assemblages of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg.

The work’s title references Plato’s seminal piece The Republic, in which Glaucon urges Socrates to define goodness. The latter refers to a comparison between goodness and the sun, proposing that just as the sun illuminates with its light, the idea of goodness illumines the intelligible with truth: "As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm the sun stands to sight and the things we see" (Louis Pojman, Classics of Philosophy, New York 2011, p. 170). The sun (or the Good) provides the very foundation on which all other truth rests and thus becomes a metaphor for the nature of reality and knowledge concerning it. Alluding to Plato’s philosophical metaphor, West’s Plato’s Sonne Skizze transforms into an artistic vision for truth, in which the illumination of the highest idea is conveyed through the powerful hues of bright and intense yellow colour.

West’s oeuvre is suffused with influences from philosophy and psychoanalysis. Besides Plato, particularly the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Sigmund Freud found a strong resonance with the artist. Wittgenstein often conceived his thinking and writing through a process of dialogue and association, characterised by creating a ‘criss-cross’ of thoughts and ideas to create possible interconnections. This open-end approach with no definite result in mind strongly echoes West’s improvised and experimental conception of an artwork. Adamant to break down the hierarchical boundaries of the artist as a creator and the viewer as a passive observer, many of West’s works – such as his early Adaptives sculptures from the 1970s, which are supposed to be worn and played with – embrace the viewer’s active participation. By rejecting and even proactively denouncing any preconceived artistic norms, West created an idiosyncratic aesthetic that is informed by his intellectual curiosity and guided by his playful and intuitive practice. Referencing this artistic ideology, Plato’s Sonne Skizze does not provide the viewer with any definite answers on the subject of truth but rather demands them to engage with and re-evaluate their own perceptions and thought constructs. The present work titled as a sketch thus becomes a preparatory element to a work that is only and ultimately finalised in participation with the viewer.