About

For Franz West, art was a social experience. Starting with his signature Passstücke, or Adaptives, in the 1970s, the Austrian-born artist (1947–2012) made sculptures that were meant to be handled and “adapted” by the audience. His furniture works, which he began creating in the early 1980s, only took this intention further. Furniture became an extensive part of his practice by the latter half of the decade—in his mind, these sculptural works were “Adaptives for the human body at rest.”

In parallel with West’s inclusion in the 2019 West Bund Art & Design fair in Shanghai, David Zwirner …