
Naktstuhl
A battered wooden and metal chair, encrusted with rough applications of plaster, sits atop a painted MDF platform, transforming an ordinary piece of furniture into a sculptural object that blurs the boundary between the utilitarian and the artistic. Franz West's tactile, gestural overworking of the chair's surface with dispersion on Masonite lends the work a raw, almost provisional quality, as though the piece is perpetually in a state of becoming. Characteristic of West's irreverent approach, *Naktstuhl* invites contemplation of how everyday objects are elevated — or destabilized — through the act of artistic intervention.
- Medium
- metal and wood chair, partially overworked with plaster and dispersion on Masonite, on painted MDF platform
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
New Now
April 11, 2019
More by Franz West
Artists in conversation

Dieter Roth
Swiss/German · b. 1930

Roth similarly transformed everyday objects and materials through obsessive tactile accumulation, applying organic and provisional substances to utilitarian forms to create works that feel perpetually unfinished and raw. His irreverent dismantling of boundaries between art and everyday life closely mirrors West's gestural overworking of the chair.

Mike Kelley
American · b. 1954

Kelley shared West's postmodern absurdist sensibility and his use of found objects and humble materials to challenge the divide between the utilitarian and the artistic. His sculptural installations carry the same provisional rawness and dark humor evident in this plaster encrusted chair piece.

Jessica Stockholder
Canadian/American · b. 1959

Stockholder incorporates found furniture and everyday objects into sculptural installations that undergo gestural surface transformations with paint and mixed media, directly echoing West's approach of overworking utilitarian objects onto painted platforms. Her work similarly occupies the boundary between sculpture and functional object.
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