
David Zwirner is pleased to announce a major installation by Austrian artist Franz West (1947–2012) on view at the gallery’s 533 West 19th Street location in New York. Consisting of multiple colourful, larger-than-life sculptures that seem to stand slightly off-balance, the installation represents the apotheosis of West’s commitment to sculpture as social space, integrating the viewer within an immersive, total environment.
A concurrent exhibition, which surveys West’s career from the 1970s through the early 2000s, will be on view at the gallery’s Paris location from March 2 to April 13. Together, these shows mark the tenth presentation of the artist’s work at David Zwirner since 1993, when his solo exhibition Investigations of American Art inaugurated the gallery’s program. During his lifetime, West presented several solo exhibitions at David Zwirner, in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 (with Heimo Zobernig), and 1999. The gallery further organised an exhibition of the artist’s early work in 2004, a small survey in 2009, a show in 2014 that focused on work from the 1990s—which was accompanied by a catalogue published by David Zwirner Books, with essays by Eva Badura-Triska, Veit Loers, and Bernhard Riff—and, more recently, a 2019 overview of the artist’s works in London.
Emerging in the early 1970s, Austrian-born artist Franz West (1947–2012) developed a unique aesthetic that engaged equally high and low reference points and often privileged social interaction as an intrinsic component of his work. By playfully manipulating everyday materials and imagery in novel ways, he 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.





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