Joseph Beuys

The German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) communicated intense emotion in his art using a wide variety of media in drawings, sculpture, and performances.

Joseph Beuys was born May 12, 1921, in Krefeld on the German/Dutch border near his parents' home in Cleves. The family moved from here to the nearby Rindern where his father and uncle owned a flour and fodder business in 1930. The geography of this border region of the lower Rhine valley left a permanent impression. Childhood memories of the common local wildlife—hare, stag, and swans—were to take on significant meanings in his mature art. As a child Beuys was fascinated with the role of the shepherd and carried around a large staff. Above all, an interest in science and the feeling of daily life in this particular geographic and historical setting formed the foundation of his artistic imagery. Beuys was educated in local schools with a concentration in natural science. He knew the local sculptor Achilles Moortgat and was aware of the work of Wilhelm Lehmbruck, which gave him his first impression of the potential power of sculptural form.

Early in World War II Beuys was inducted to serve as a radio operator and then as a pilot, but he was able to continue his studies intermittently. By 1943 he had begun making sketches based on his experiences and had come to the realization that science would not be his profession. One significant experience of the war years occurred in 1943. Beuys's plane was shot down while he was flying behind enemy lines in the Crimea. He landed in a region between the Russian and German lines populated by Tartar nomads. They discovered him unconscious and saved his life by wrapping his frozen body in fat and felt to conserve heat. The regenerative power of these natural materials was to be explored in many later sculptures made of these nontraditional materials.

After the war Beuys exhibited drawings with a local group of artists in Cleves. In the same year he entered the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, becoming a student of the sculptor Ewald Mataré. His early sculptures were of natural elements—Crystal (1949) and Moon (1950)—but others such as Sleds (1949) and Gas Cellar (1954) begin the exploration of themes that dominated his later work based on traumatic war experiences. In these same years Beuys continued to produce a large number of drawings of organic matter, plants, animals, and myths.

From 1954 through the late 1950s Beuys experienced a personal crisis during which he withdrew to the farm of close friends and patrons where he worked in the fields and barns. During this period his concept of art coalesced and he found a way to communicate the social and personal values with which he would be concerned in the succeeding decades. A major installation drawn from work of this period on the theme of Auschwitz at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt is called Concentration Camp Essen (1958). It displays various materials including a picture of a starved and crippled girl, charred remains, a dead rat, small bottles of poison, lengths of blutwurst sausage, and electric plates with blocks of fat.

The use of organic materials such as fat relates the whole to the natural world. The transformability of fat from solid to liquid at different temperatures makes it an analogy for natural change and regeneration while at the same time it bears memories of crematoria. His rescue by the Tartar nomads had made fat seem an intensely meaningful material that could communicate a range of deeply personal and at the same time universal meanings. Beeswax shares the property of having different forms at different temperatures and was used by Beuys, along with honey, in his art. This complex intertwining of relationships and meanings is characteristic of Beuys's mature work, as is the use of unusual organic materials and the seemingly informal organization of the whole.

His youthful fascination with the shepherd was transformed into the idea of the artist as a shaman, a point of contact with the spiritual roots that nourish human existence. Like a shaman, Beuys wore emblems of his role, most particularly a flat brimmed felt hat that became his most identifiable characteristic. Beuys also developed the theme that every human is a sculptor, by molding thoughts, shaping them into words, and then expressing these as social ideas.

In 1962 Beuys was appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and in the same year became associated with the Fluxus Group. These artists, mainly musicians, were interested in breaking down the traditional categories of art and in bringing it closer to the audience through performance. Among other members were the video artist Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Wolf Vostell, and George Maciunas.

Beuys's performances, which he called "actions," were intensely memorable, puzzling landmarks in his art. In The Chief (1963-1964), Beuys lay for nine hours wrapped in felt with two dead hares, the only sound an occasional intense cry as from a stag. Another memorable action from this decade was How To Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare (1965) in which Beuys, head covered with honey and gold leaf, carried a dead hare through an exhibit of his pictures and then sat talking to the hare about them. For Beuys this action was about the source of ideas and how the intellect can be deadly in politics and education. His actions had the feel of mythic communications whose impact was hard to explain but intensely felt by observers. Multiple editions based on these performances gave them some permanence, such as the 1970 letterpress edition of a photograph of The Chief. Postcards, objects, films, and records were all issued in multiple editions. Images developed in actions often touched on trauma points of the culture as a whole and became increasingly political during the 1970s.

In the late 1960s, a time when students were actively involved in political issues, Beuys was accused of contributing to the disruption of the Düsseldorf Academy. In 1971 he invited students to his class who had been denied entry, with the argument that education should not be restricted to those who already have achieved competency. His activities culminated in his dismissal in October of 1972, and the start of litigation that was not resolved until his vindication in 1978. He was deeply involved in political issues and in working toward the creation of open educational opportunities, a Free International University.

Major exhibitions devoted to Beuys were organized in the 1970s, such as in 1979 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Enigmatic, powerful, mythic, Beuys's art defied boundaries and explanations. Direct experience of his art communicated intuitively by touching universal areas of shared imagery and memory. He died in Düsseldorf January 23, 1986, of heart failure after a long illness.

Further Reading

The catalogue to the Joseph Beuys exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1979) by Caroline Tisdall contains an introductory biography and explanations of the many works in that show with over 500 photographs and a wealth of information on Beuys's associates and activities. Joseph Beuys, Life and Works by Götz Adriani, Winfried Konnertz, and Karin Thomas (Cologne, 1973, repr. Barron's 1979) presents a year by year chronology and has an extensive bibliography. Joseph Beuys Drawings, catalogue of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1983), is devoted exclusively to an extensive survey of Beuys's drawings.

Additional Sources

Stachelhaus, Heiner, Joseph Beuys, New York: Abbeville Press, 1991. □

Beuys, Joseph (1921–1986). German sculptor, draughtsman, Performance artist, and teacher, one of the leading figures in avant-garde art in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Like Yves Klein, he was highly influential in shifting emphasis from what an artist makes to his personality, actions, and opinions, and he succeeded in creating a kind of personal mythology. (As a Luftwaffe pilot he was shot down in the Crimea in 1943 and according to his own account, which has been doubted, he was looked after by nomadic Tartars who kept him warm with fat and felt—materials that came to figure prominently in his work. The hat that he habitually wore hid the head injuries he received in the crash.)

Beuys was born in Krefeld and spent most of his early life in or near Kleve. He had intended being a paediatrician, but because of the outbreak of the Second World War he went virtually straight from school into the German air force. During his service he was wounded five times and he ended the war as a prisoner. In 1946–51 he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, and in 1961 he was appointed professor of sculpture there. Characteristically his sculpture is made of junk material or rough, unworked wood. However, he probably became better known for performances, of which a famous example was How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). In this he walked around an exhibition in the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf, his face covered in honey and gold leaf, carrying in his arms a dead hare, to which he gave an explanation of various pictures. He described the performance as ‘A complex tableau about the problems of language, and about the problems of thought, of human consciousness and of the consciousness of animals'.

Beuys became a member of Fluxus, an international group of artists opposed to tradition and professionalism in the arts, and he was also active in politics, aligning himself with the Greens, the West German ecological party. His ‘presumptuous political dilettantism’ was condemned by several of his colleagues at the Academy and in 1972 he was dismissed from his professorship. The protests that followed included a strike by his students, and a settlement was eventually reached whereby he kept his title and his studio but his teaching contract was ended. From this point he devoted more and more of his time to public speaking and debate, the well-known personalities with whom he conferred including Andy Warhol and the Dalai Lama. Although he continued to make sculpture, he dismissed the art object as ‘a useless piece of merchandise whose only purpose is to provide the artist with an income'. This was in line with the ideas of Arte Povera, seeking to undermine the commercialization of the art world, but even the blackboards that he used in his lectures and demonstrations have been sold for hefty sums. By the end of his life he was an international celebrity and was regarded by his admirers as a kind of art guru. Edward Lucie-Smith writes that ‘Beuys's mission, as he saw it, was to offer society a form of moral, social, and psychological therapy, but not necessarily any form of visual stimulus’ (Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century, 1996). Writing a few years before the artist's death (in The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, 1983), Peter Fuller took a less charitable view: ‘Beuys's many vociferous proponents maintain that he is demonstrating that the whole process of living itself can be regarded as a creative act. In reality, however, Beuys may be little more than an adroit poseur who has successfully exploited the decadence of late modernist vanguardism to his own advantage.’

Beuys, Joseph (b Krefeld, 12 May 1921; d Düsseldorf, 23 Jan. 1986). German sculptor, draughtsman, teacher, and Performance artist, regarded as one of the most influential figures in avant-garde art in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Like Yves Klein, he was a leading light in shifting emphasis from what an artist makes to his personality, actions, and opinions, and he succeeded in creating a kind of personal mythology. (As a Luftwaffe pilot he was shot down in the Crimea in 1943 and according to his own account, which has been doubted, he was looked after by nomadic Tartars who kept him warm with fat and felt—materials that came to figure prominently in his work. The hat that he habitually wore hid the head injuries he received in the crash.) After the war he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, 1946–51, and he became professor of sculpture there in 1961. He worked in various media, but is perhaps best known for his performances, of which the most famous was probably How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). In this he walked around an exhibition in the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf, his face covered in honey and gold leaf, carrying in his arms a dead hare, to which he gave an explanation of various pictures. He described the performance as ‘A complex tableau about the problems of language, and about the problems of thought, of human consciousness and of the consciousness of animals.’

In 1962 Beuys became a member of Fluxus, an international group of artists, opposed to tradition and professionalism in the arts, and he was also active in politics, aligning himself with the West German ecology party, the Greens. His ‘presumptuous political dilettantism’ eventually led to conflict with authority and in 1972 he was dismissed from his professorship. The protests that followed included a strike by his students, and a settlement was eventually reached whereby he kept his title and studio but his teaching contract was ended. He devoted a good deal of his later career to public speaking and debate, and in 1982 he had a meeting with the Dalai Lama in Paris. By the end of his life he was an international celebrity and was regarded by his admirers as a kind of art guru. To many people, however, his work is pretentious or incomprehensible.

Beuys, Joseph (1921–86). German sculptor, draughtsman, teacher, and Performance artist, one of the most influential figures in avant-garde art in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Like Yves Klein, he was a leading light in shifting emphasis from what an artist makes to his personality, actions, and opinions, and he succeeded in creating a kind of personal mythology. (As a Luftwaffe pilot he was shot down in the Crimea in 1943 and according to his own account, which has been doubted, he was looked after by nomadic Tartars who kept him warm with fat and felt—materials that came to figure prominently in his work. The hat that he habitually wore hid the head injuries he received in the crash.) After the war he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, 1946–51, and he became professor of sculpture there in 1961. He worked in various media, but is perhaps best known for his performances, of which the most famous was probably How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). In this he walked around an exhibition in the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf, his face covered in honey and gold leaf, carrying in his arms a dead hare, to which he gave an explanation of various pictures. He described the performance as ‘A complex tableau about the problems of language, and about the problems of thought, of human consciousness and of the consciousness of animals.’ In 1962 Beuys became a member of Fluxus, an international group of artists, opposed to tradition and professionalism in the arts, and he was also active in politics, aligning himself with the West German ecology party, the Greens. His ‘presumptuous political dilettantism’ led to conflict with authority and in 1972 he was dismissed from his professorship. The protests that followed included a strike by his students, and a settlement was eventually reached whereby he kept his title and studio but his teaching contract was ended. He devoted a good deal of his later career to public speaking and debate, and in 1982 he had a meeting with the Dalai Lama in Paris. By the end of his life he was an international celebrity and was regarded by his admirers as a kind of art guru. To many people, however, his work is pretentious or incomprehensible.

Joseph Beuys , 1921–86, German artist, b. Krefeld; one of the most influential of postmodern artists. Drafted into the Luftwaffe during World War II, he was wounded several times and in 1943 was shot down over Crimea. Nearly frozen, he was found by Tatar nomads who saved his life by wrapping him in felt and fur—materials that he later often used in his work and that assumed iconic, life-affirming stature in it. He studied (1947–51) and later taught at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf, where he was (1961–72) professor of sculpture. A member of the neo- Dada group Fluxus during the early 1960s, Beuys pioneered certain ritualized latter-day happenings that he called Actions; they were among the first contemporary examples of performance art . Later in the 1960s he and his art turned toward left-wing politics; he was a founder (1967) of the German Students party and a Green party activist in the 1970s.

With his room-filling temporary constructions, Beuys also pioneered the movement that led to installation art. In his installations and other sculptural work Beuys included such elements as food, dead animals, wire, wood, cloth, automobiles, musical instruments, scraps of various materials, and many other likely and unlikely objects. In these unconventional, often obsessional, and sometimes disturbing pieces and in his many drawings and posters, Beuys rejected abstract art in favor of an aesthetic that relied heavily on his own experience and that elevated subject matter to utmost importance. Thematically, he was apt to touch on such issues as the environment, politics, and humanity's relationship with nature. Famous in the international art world by the 1970s, Beuys had an important impact on an emerging group of avant-garde artists, first in Europe and later in the United States.

Bibliography: See J. F. Moffitt, Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys (1988); H. Stackelhaus, Joseph Beuys (1991); A. Temkin and B. Rose, Thinking Is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys (1992).