Franz West

With Eo ipso Franz West transformed an old washing machine that had once belonged to his mother into sculptural seating furniture. He crudely welded together the different components and varnished them lime green. Two seating elements some five metres apart were joined by a single strip of sheet metal; a separate “chair” completed the arrangement.

West chose to locate the group on a little frequented street corner after taking a walk through the city. The functions of the surrounding buildings – a primary school, a retirement home, residential blocks, a court building and a church – reflected a clichéd cross-section of Münster society. West intruded in this urban setting with his crude aesthetic of household junk, combining the social and functional pretensions of art by offering visitors and locals alike places to sit down. Thus the installation dissolved the seemingly strict boundaries between artistic, design and utilitarian objects. At the same time, the sculpture facilitated communication and interaction by encouraging people from different peer groups defined by age, education or social status to sit down together.

Daniel Friedt