Friday, August 16, 2013
Mostly West: Franz West & Artist Collaborations, Inverleith House, Edinburgh
A large fluffy ball coated with green wool is suspended above a small table surrounded by four simple chairs. Visitors are invited to sit down and begin a non-verbal "conversation" - gently head-butting and swatting the ball so that it swings like a pendulum back and forth across the tabletop.
This is Talk Without Words (Christopher Wool) (2012) by the artists Marina Faust and Franz West, and it is typical of the playful exuberance that characterises this exhibition.
Mostly West honours the influential Austrian artist Franz West, who received the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the 2011 Venice Biennale before he died last year. Struck by the visceral power of Viennese Actionism, West started out as a sculptor and became known for anarchic work, often with a witty sexual theme. The opposite of precious, he had an inclusive and generous spirit, inviting other artists to collaborate with him throughout his career. The exhibition at Inverleith House contains more than 50 examples of these unruly collaborations with the likes of Sarah Lucas, Albert Oehlen and Douglas Gordon over three decades.
The offhand artworks, which range from messy papier-mâché forms, one of which is topped with a fried egg freshly prepared each morning, to divans and masticated sticks of pink chewing gum, are funny, light and - like Talk Without Words - often participatory. The general feel is that of a raucous late-night party. There are weightier themes too - about the nature of artistic identity, for instance. But it is hard to imagine a less po-faced exhibition, or one that has a keener sense of pulse-quickening freedom.
Until Sept 22; www.rbge.ac.uk/inverleith-house
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/300a2f1a/sc/38/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Cart0Cart0Ereviews0C10A2482850CMostly0EWest0EFranz0EWest0Eand0EArtist0ECollaborations0EInverleith0EHouse0EEdinburgh0Bhtml/story01.htm
