Franz West was an Austrian artist born in Vienna, where he lived and worked for most of his life. He grew up in a culturally engaged environment: his mother, a dentist, regularly took him on art-viewing trips to Italy, while Vienna’s café culture of the 1960s and 1970s profoundly shaped his intellectual and social outlook. West enrolled at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, from 1977 to 1982, where he studied under Bruno Gironcoli. Emerging in the early 1970s, his practice developed in dialogue with, and in reaction against, Viennese Actionism, favouring ambiguity, humour, and social engagement over spectacle and transgression.
West’s work is characterised by a sustained investigation of the body, its movement through space, and the social and psychological codes that shape posture, behaviour, and interaction. Deeply influenced by philosophy and psychoanalysis, his practice frequently references sexuality, desire, and the unconscious. Across sculpture, collage, drawing, and painting, West combined high and low cultural references, embracing playfulness, improvisation, and material experimentation.
Working with materials ranging from papier mâché, found furniture, fabric, and welded metal to aluminium and painted surfaces, West produced works that span intimate objects and monumental outdoor sculptures. His early collages and paintings show the influence of Pop Art, while later works developed into brightly coloured, open-form structures and organic, bodily forms. Over more than three decades, West exhibited extensively in museums and galleries worldwide and was a regular participant in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale and Documenta. West’s work gained great acclaim in the 1980s, with solo exhibitions being held at the Neue Galerie, Austria and Wiener Secession, Vienna (1986), and his first exhibition in the US in 1989 at the Institute for Contemporary Art, P.S.1, New York.
Opening November 6, 2026 Albertina Museum in Vienna will devote a retrospective to Franz West (1947–2012) in honor of what would have been his 80th birthday. Significant recent exhibitions include Franz West, Tate Modern, London, UK (2019) Franz West, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018); Franz West: Wo ist mein Achter? (Where Is My Eight?), The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2013); Franz West: To Build a House You Start with the Roof, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA (2009); travelled from Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA (2008); Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria (2008).
West’s work is held in major public collections internationally, including the Albertina Museum, Vienna; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; mumok, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, among many others.