Ossi aussi Ossi

A collage on a very long piece of ordinary cardboard, Ossi also Ossi (Ossi also Ossi) - “Ossi” being what West Germans called citizens of the former East Germany - asks the viewer to observe an odd face-to-face encounter. Two isolated shapes stand out against the "poor" background: a grimacing person and an unidentified sharp object lying on a base painted in grey by the artist. A line of yellow and beige gouache conspicuously runs across the top of the cardboard without binding the two ends.

Ossi aussi Ossi is a brilliant example of Franz West's earliest collages. Since the 1980s he has been working on horizontal compositions on cardboard. He develops a very personal aesthetic that is in keeping with his time.

A painting prefiguring the "trash" of the 1990s, Ossi aussi Ossi by Franz West is in the Pinault Collection. It was first exhibited at the "Sequence 1" show in 2007 at the Palazzo Grassi.