(Vienna 1947–2012) Untitled (Tuttles), object picture, 2 parts, papier mâché, plaster, dispersion, lacquer, 45.5 x 26 x 3 and 46 x 28 x 5 cm, hanging device on the reverse, (K)

Registered:
Franz West Privatstiftung Archiv, Vienna

Compare:
Franz West, Proforma, Oktagon 1996, page 136
...While the use of these wall and floor objects is still connected to the place of their current installation, in 1974 sculptural works also appeared for the first time, expressely designed as portable objects for use at any location, thereby abandoning any link with traditional places of art conservation or reception - such as museums, exhibitions or even living rooms.
The course of this development begins with a group of flat objects with reliefs, made from varnished papier mâché, and in a sense seguing from pictures to sculptural objects. As in West’s early works, the sensitive fashioning of the surfaces is already bound to a succinct, spontaneous and fragile aesthetic. With their individual forms, yet consistently smooth and concentrated, these works appear as “Viennese variations” of the “shaped canvases”, which stand in contrast to American perfectionism, and in doing so, activate even more strongly unconscious layers of experience. Their distinctive roundness evokes associations with the female form, an effect which unavoidably arises in every piece that West lends the shape of a guitar. West himself acknowledges the smooth, sensitive shaping of the early poetical wall-reliefs of Richard Tuttle as a source of inspiration for these works.
Eva Badura-Triska, Objektbilder und Paßstück

Provenance:
Formerly Private Collection, Vienna
Private Collection, New York