Austrian artist Franz West created abstract sculpture, collage, and furniture using papier-mâché and sausage-like forms to produce “art that you could really get in touch with,” according to the artist. The playfulness of West’s work is a subversion of the nihilistic themes of the Viennese Actionism movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He began creating the portable mixed media sculpture series Passstück (Adaptive) in 1973. Each of these sculptures are activated as artworks when worn, held, or engaged by the viewer. In West’s words, “You make unplanned actions and gestures with the audience looking at you, and you wonder what you are doing with this. So, the gestures become a little like art.”

–Ariel Caruso, from the Glenstone Field Guide