Description
When Franz Wests Les Pommes dAdam was first displayed in Paris Place Vendme in 2007, the exhibition curators noted that the sculpture took its name and inspiration from the Adams apple, pointing to the distinctive anatomical profile of a mans throat. The public, however, interpreted the gathering of bubblegum-pink sculptures in a slightly more provocative way, locating the reference lower on the male torso.
West would have reveled in the confusion, having once said, It doesnt matter what art looks like, but how it is used. The use of art, and its interpretation by individuals, was always of interest to West. Among his earliest works are the Pastcke, or Adaptives, a series of small, portable plaster objects, a selection of which was exhibited at MASS MoCA in 2002. Adaptives were made to be picked up and manipulated by the viewer, their meaning changing with use. Some might be utilized as bookends or flower vases, while others may be displayed on sculptural plinths.
Les Pommes dAdam, like much of Wests work, is infused with humor and a particular delight in visual and linguistic puns. It pokes, provokes, and makes us reconsider our physical and psychological relationship to art. The sculptures evocation of the human body recalls the work of the Actionists, a group of artists prominent in Vienna while he was a student at the Academy of Applied Arts. Like the American Fluxus group, the Actionists sought to create art outside the usual gallery and market structure, often as free-form events or happenings that yielded abstract works of art and ritualistic, body-oriented performances.
Les Pommes dAdam is rough-hewn and made of basic materials: metal, epoxy, paint, and concrete. The 4 pink biomorphic totems, each standing at approximately 25 feet, are at once crude in shape, yet highly finished. In its Paris showing, Les Pommes dAdamwas installed in close proximity to the Vendme Column, on top of which stands a statue of Napolon Bonaparte in Roman garb. Wests presentation of Les Pommes dAdam at the Place Vendme engaged and perhaps parodied the Napoleonic Column, prompting viewers to reinvestigate it and its role in the history of Paris and France. The idiomatic expression, Napoleon complex, for example, takes on new meaning in light of the apocryphal tale of the etymology of the term Adams apple. According to the biblical passage, the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was an apple tree. When Eve gave Adam a piece of the trees forbidden fruit and he ate it, a fragment became lodged in his throat. The Adams apple thus serves as a permanent reminder of the folly of desiring that which one should not have, or know. Likewise, with its monumental, if not pretentious, scale, Les Pommes dAdam may offer a playful warning about the perils of unbridled ambition.
Details
- Location:
- Outdoors