FRANZ INVITED
Franz: “Do you think you could ever live in Vienna?”
Julie: “No. No,
too many violins.”
Franz: “Ja, ja, too much violence.”
Franz nodded in understanding and continued, “But
Vienna needs young artists.” And he invited
me to stay.
I had been living in Paris (in love with a violin
player) when Mary Heilmann’s impromptu invitation arrived to ‘hang out’ with
her in Vienna for her exhibition at Galerie Meyer Kainer. She was travelling
alone…’Would I join her?’ It took nearly 17 hours by train to get to the
Austrian capital with a plan to stay for several days. Instead it became my
home for almost 10 years…because I met Franz West, and Franz invited me. He was always inviting
people to join, to eat, to show, to something.
Franz was a choreographer as much as he was any kind
of great artist. And he was a great artist. He had this posse of people he was constantly keeping track
of: picking up paper cones of tomatoes at the Naschtmarkt, meats at Meinl,
bringing in fruits to the atelier, getting phones fixed: organizing. The first
time Franz called me on the phone he wondered, “Do you eat lunch?” I thought it
might be a trick dietary or leisure question (You lazy hungry artist!) but
Franz was an eater, a planner, a reader, a conductor of the people around him.
When he himself could not attend said lunch or event, he still orchestrated its
line-up: He was still there. And that was just the eating part of the day. This doesn’t even begin to touch the
actual art making, curating, family…
Franz had bad knees and a distinctive gate - a
swagger. One could spot Franz a kilometer away weaving down the Kartnerstrasse
with a book in his pocket, perhaps handing out some cash to the homeless guy who had least annoyed him that day. Because of course these guys knew his
walk too (and where he lived!) and they knew he was good for a buck.
To say Franz was generous is perhaps beside the
point. I don’t know that he ever thought himself as a “generous” person, as
much as a person who was always giving: able to give. He gave back what he
could as soon as he could afford to. As an artist Franz did not rise to the
scene unscathed, he was not lifted, but rather hoisted (like some of his
sculpture) into the art world’s eye. The man who did not drive, the music
lover, creature of the night, storyteller, rock star philosopher, avoider of
bourgeois middle grounds was one of the greatest livers of life around.
