I like America and America likes me,
Performance,
Galerie Rene Block,
New York, May, 21-25, 1974
The idealistic
and, at the same time, radical evocation of this creaturely unity was
capable of taking on a diversity of forms, of which drawing was only one.
Here, too, the boundaries between a variety of artistic expressions became
blurred; everything was part of a system in which the borders between
disciplines were constantly being crossed. During his performances and
actions, for instance, Beuys frequently wrote on blackboards, all of which
have since wound up in the museum as relics from the happenings – here,
too, the proximity to the simple drawing on paper is evident. One of his
most provocative and attention-getting performances was I like America
and America likes me; the work consisted of the artist locking himself
up for five days in May of 1974 in René Block’s New York exhibition space,
each time spending several hours with a live (and rather curious) coyote
while wrapped in a cloak of felt. Yet in Beuys’ case it was secondary
whether the effort undertaken in a work was great or not. Basically, his
conceptual cosmos, his "expanded concept of art", can be seen in every
drawing.
|
Hirschdenkmal, 1949,
Deutsche Bank Collection
|
|
|
DDR-Tüte (Well Bought, Happily
Bought), 1980
|
In keeping with
Arte Povera, to which Beuys is generally ascribed, there was hardly any
raw material that didn’t lend itself to creative use by the artist. Just
as he implemented simple everyday things in his objects and sculptures –
chairs, tables, discarded practical goods of every kind – his drawings and
assemblages are likewise composed of a wide array of elements and
individual parts that, to put it bluntly, others would simply regard as
garbage. In the work Hirschdenkmal (Stag Monument) from the year
1949, for instance, two torn shreds of differently colored paper join to
form an abstract composition, while words and lines of type in his graphic
works guide the viewer’s associations, such as when Beuys takes a former
East German fruit satchel and breathes new life into it (Well Bought,
Happily Bought).
Sometimes it seems as though the paint had
landed aimlessly onto the paper through a spontaneous gesture, as in the
drawing Stag from 1960, in which only red and white spots can be
seen. Then again, some of the drawings look like someone quickly jotted
down a short note and then, for some unknown reason, glued a coffee filter
next to it (Declaration, 1969). Yet even the least spectacular and
seemingly most random of these works fit as precisely as tiles into the
larger mosaic of Beuys’ artistic way of viewing the world, which the
artist propagated with a virtually missionary zeal.
|
Hirsch, 1960,
Deutsche Bank Collection
|
|
In 1967, this view of the world led him into politics; that
same year, he founded his first party, the DSP (German Students’ Party).
Yet even this didn’t contradict Beuys’ artistic credo. The theme of
“warmth” as an energy affecting both the single individual and larger
human gatherings could easily be applied to overall social processes and
developments. Three years later, Beuys again founded a body, the
"Organization of Non-Voters, Free Referendum", which kept an
office in Düsseldorf’s city center. In 1971, Beuys called the
"Organization for Direct Democracy via Referendum" to life and
set up an information office during his participation in the
documenta 5 in Kassel.
|
Declaration, 1969,
Deutsche Bank Collection
|
The same year, while the so-called "Academy Fight" was
going on, the students’ secretariat was occupied. The situation escalated
and Beuys was fired without notice for disturbing the peace, whereupon his
students organized hunger strikes, protest marches, and open-air lessons.
In 1973, together with the painters
Georg Meistermann and
Willi Bongard as well as the graphic artist
Klaus Staeck, Beuys initiated the "Association for Furthering a Free
International Academy for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research Inc."
In 1976, he became the leading candidate of the AUD, the "Action Society
of Independent Germans" in North Rhine-Westphalia, out of which, among
other things, the
"Green" party was ultimately formed three years later.
And that’s a mere excerpt from the list of Beuys’ activities towards
changing the social condition. Joseph Beuys’ most famous and frequently
misunderstood quote, according to which "every person" is an "artist",
should be understood in this context. Beuys wasn’t suggesting that
everybody could paint and draw well if they only wanted to. He coined the
phrase for the sole purpose of referring to the power of political change
inherent in each and every individual.
Bergkönig, 1961,
Sammlung
Deutsche Bank
For Beuys, all people
possessing a corresponding awareness were components of the "Social
Sculpture", in other words part of an emancipated, artistically creative
society in which they were taking their fate into their own hands. "The
only revolutionary power is the power of human creativity", Beuys once
said, and: "My politics is a politics of liberation." To his mind, the
"social organism" was a "living being" and its "evolutionary principle"
was "warmth". "It all hinges on the warming characteristic of thought",
the artist stated; "that is the new quality of the will".
|
Fielt Suit, 1970
Multiple
|
By this point, of course, Beuys had already long since
become his own private trademark. His working materials felt and fat are
familiar to every schoolchild; they’ve been parodied in advertising, and
they made headlines, even in the tabloid press, when unsuspecting cleaning
women removed one of his "Fat Corners" in the Düsseldorf Art Academy
following his death. Beuys also broke a number of other records, as well:
there’s no other artist that’s been photographed as often or the
photographs reproduced as frequently as his have been. Beuys became an
icon for an entire generation: a star that succeeded in making himself the
subject of his own art, in spite of his social commitment.
Translation: Andrea Scrima
[1]
[2]
|
