Summer 2014 sees The Hepworth Wakefield dedicate its gallery spaces to a large-scale exhibition of one of the most prominent artists of our time. Franz West, who died in July 2012, achieved worldwide fame with his Passstücke [Adaptives], as well as his sculptures for interior and exterior spaces.
Franz West: Where is my Eight?
13 June - 14 September
The Hepworth Wakefield
Free Admission
www.hepworthwakefield.org/FranzWest/
The focus of this loosely chronological exhibition is West's combination pieces, in which the artist combined various individual pieces and subsequently recombined them in different configurations. Due to this combination and recombination of different kinds of work including Adaptives, furniture, sculpture, videos and works on paper from different periods, the exhibition provides a much needed and highly anticipated major UK showing of West's varied, influential and prolific practice.
Here at The Hepworth Wakefield the exhibition also investigates the connections and parallels between the work of Franz West and Barbara Hepworth. With a playful yet striking intervention into The Hepworth Family Gift gallery, this exhibition will places both artists' work in conversation: the use of the democratic material of plaster; the significance of the studio environment; and the repeated return to reconfiguring and adapting previous work.
Where is my Eight? was initiated and co-developed with mumok (Museum moderner Kunst, Vienna) and by Franz West with great enthusiasm before his death and provides insight into West's complex and many-layered art practice.
Franz West: Where is my Eight? is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Crown Fine Art & Austrian Cultural Forum London.