Franz West
Paßstück (Adaptive), c.1984
Wood, plastic, iron, papier-mâché, gauze, plaster, dispersion
92 x 49 x 39 cm
Paßstücke are sculptures intended for interaction, to be picked up and used, not merely looked at. West has described them both as prostheses and visual representations of neuroses, suggesting a direct relationship to the body.1 Though as this rather unforgiving shape suggests, they were never designed with ergonomics in mind, rather inviting awkward poses as the viewer/user tried to find an impossible, snug fit.
1 See Kito Nedo, 'Franz West: Worldly Pleasures', Tate Etc., issue 49, Spring 2019, 19 February. Digital journal, last access 26 April 2021
West first produced one of his Adaptives in 1974. Most of these social objects started life as found items that he would cover in plaster and papier-mâché, adding various twists, turns and protrusions, until the original form could not quite be discerned anymore. By 1984, the year he made this particular Paßstück, West had pushed the concept further still to create bigger, furniture-like pieces, equally accompanied by a sign encouraging their use.
Never solely interested in the formalist qualities of his work, Franz West was heavily influenced by thinkers working in his hometown, Vienna, including the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and psychoanalysts Jaques Lacan and Sigmund Freud (though rejecting the latter’s theory of drives). Whilst engaging with intellectualism, West’s art strived to create something that was ultimately unpretentious and playful.