Franz West

Kainer Meyer Gallery, Vienna
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Eisenstadt, Esterházy Palace, Haydn Explosive - A European Career at the Court of Esterhazy, September 2009 - November 2010, p. 210 

This work is very good and sound condition overall. All of the adhered elements appear stable. All irregularities to the surface appear inherent to the artist’s chosen medium. Under close inspection, some minor handling marks and evidence of wear are visible to the top of the artist’s wooden base.
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"There is a distinct look to West's work that defies quick visual digestion. Fundamentally sculptural in construction, it veers frequently towards the biomorphic and the prosthetic, mines the intellectualism of Freud and Wittgenstein, and possesses an awkward beauty that speaks with equal fluency to the aesthetics of painterly abstraction and trash art...[W]ith its alternately crumbly or sleek surfaces, the work beckons human touch in an environment where such demonstrative reactions are strictly forbidden." Darsie Alexander in Exh. Cat., The Baltimore Museum of Art, Franz West, To Build a House You Start With the Roof: Work 1972-2008, 2008, p. 49

The title of the present work Paukenschlag refers to Joseph Haydn’s famous Symphony No. 94, often referred to in German as "mit dem Paukenschlag” (“with the kettledrum stroke" or '‘Surprise Symphony"), which references the sudden fortissimo chord at the end of the otherwise calm and rhythmic piano opening theme in the variation-form second movement. This sudden bombastic break with the soothing melody typifies the subtle musical gamesmanship for which Haydn is best known. Franz West was drawn to this piece of music for its particular qualities that he felt were important in his own work: playfulness and irreverence for tradition and hierarchy. This was typical of Hadyn’s music and this mischievousness is emphatically present in the work of Franz West.

Emerging in the early 1970s, Austrian-born artist Franz West developed a unique aesthetic that engaged equally high and low reference points and often privileged social interaction as an intrinsic component of his work. In Paukenschlag, for example, one finds a reference to the music of Hadyn combined with the more rambunctious physical qualities of the sculpture made of painted papier-mâché. By playfully manipulating everyday materials and imagery in novel ways, West created objects that serve to redefine art as a social experience, calling attention to the way in which art is presented to the public, and how viewers interact with works of art and with each other. West’s sculptures are often on pedestals or stands that are part of the work, which helps connect the piece to its actual space and removes another barrier between the artwork and the viewer. His haphazard painterly treatment of his piece’s surface also strives to make his sculpture more approachable than sacrosanct. It is this dedication to redefining the approach to art a viewer can have into something more active and playful that has rightfully given West his reputation as one of the most innovative sculptors of the past forty years.