To Build a House You Start with the Roof: Work, 1972 - 2008 includes 117 objects that reflect Austrian artist Franz West’s innovations in sculpture, design, and on paper—ranging from early interactive works from the 1970s to two enormous brightly colored objects created for this exhibition.

Known for his intriguing sculptures, provocative collages, and giant outdoor installations, Franz West (b. 1947) mines the intellectualism of Freud and Wittgenstein. The Baltimore exhibition is organized as a series of mini-installations that invite visitors to encounter and occasionally touch a range of objects. Three of West’s candy-colored sculptures greet visitors outside of the Museum. These colorful organic forms include Dorit (2002), a 20-foot tall column with four round orbslike pink gumballs on a pole, and Swimmer (2005) and Violetta. To the song of Gerhard Rühm: I like to rest on aquatic corpses (2005) ― both recent additions to the BMA’s collection. Inside the Museum, the exhibition begins with two 25-foot tall aluminum sculptures.  These oversize looping objects titled The Ego and The Id (2008) offer a place for visitors to take a seat and become part of the art.

Subsequent rooms include cabinets, tables, and chairs that infuse the art environment with the culture of bars, cafés, and domestic life (1990s), a large room with papier-mâché groupings and an installation of free‐standing sculptures; and a gallery of stand‐alone works that are as beautiful as they are precarious-looking (1980 - 1990s). In the final Adaptives section (1970s), visitors can handle select human‐scaled plaster sculptures in a space tinged by the crimson hue of West’s floor lamps. Throughout the exhibition, groupings of West’s collages show the often cheeky and humorous influences of mass media, comic books, pop culture, and advertising.

The exhibition travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art March 15 – June 7, 2009.