Exhibition Guide

Everyone Is an Artist Cosmopolitical Exercises with

27. 3. – 15.8.2021 Exhibition Guide “All this only be acquired through Everyone Is an Artist practice. Through daily practice. You can call it meditation or concentration exer­ cises. When I talk about the expanded concept of and say that everyone is an artist, I clearly take into account that this is one of the most important creative moments of human beings—to let it come to a democratic constitution born out of freedom, that is to say from creativity, from the creative power of all people.” Joseph Beuys, 1985

Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys

27. 3. – 15.8.2021 Floor Plan Contents Exhibition Guide Introduction 2 Prelude 0 3 4 Exercise 1 4 Everyone Is an Artist 1 5 Exercise 2 6 2 Exercise 3 10 0 3 Exercise 4 12 Exercise 5 13 9 Exercise 6 14 12 10 Exercise 7 16 6 Exercise 8 18 8 Exercise 9 20 11 7 Exercise 10 22 Exercise 11 24 Exercise 12 26

Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys

27. 3. – 15.8.2021 Introduction Everyone Is an Artist 2 Prelude 3 As a draftsman, sculptor, teacher, politician, activist, and action and installation artist, Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) left an indelible mark on the art of the twentieth century. Like no other artist of his time, he linked art with social processes, proposing it as a uni- versal creative force for transformation in politics, science, philoso- phy, and the economy. His influence can still be felt in today’s 0 artistic and political discourses. The hundredth anniversary of his birth thus offers an occasion to appreciate, rediscover, and criti­ cally interrogate his complex oeuvre and international impact. Divided into twelve sections (exercises), the exhibition in the Klee Halle at K20 provides far-reaching insights into Joseph Beuys’s cosmo­politan thinking as manifested in the performance pieces he called “Actions.” Taking center stage for the first time in this show, they illustrate the performative potentials of his art, his actionist approach, his quasi-ritualistic acts, and his trans­ formative handling of objects and materials. In his Actions, Beuys assumes the role of an acting, speaking, and moving figure in order to explore the central idea behind his expanded concept of art: “Everyone is an artist.” Building on this proposition, Beuys developed a revolutionary theory of “” predicated on a process of self-trans­ formation: All individuals should see themselves as artists, shaping their lives according to the principles of sculpture in order to renew society from the ground up. The creative capacities and the uncon­ ditional freedom inherent in human thought are at the heart of his expanded concept of art. In the exhibition, contemporary artists and representatives Lutz Mommartz with people. He called for an art from diverse areas of society enter into a multilayered transcultural Soziale Plastik whose primary concern is the dialogue with Beuys. In each chapter, one of Beuys’s Actions forms (Social Sculpture) needs of humankind and society. the starting point for “exercises in political thought” in the form 19 6 9 The free human being is at the center of these considerations. of dialogues as envisioned by Hannah Arendt. These fictitious conver- 16mm film, digitized, black-and-white, no sound, 11:31 min. The source of this freedom is think- sations reveal central questions, themes, and potentials for action Lutz Mommartz, © Joseph Beuys Estate ing. Freedom enables creativity. within the utopia of social sculpture that Beuys placed firmly in and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 Every individual can thus be the here and now, while the complex dialogues with the selected con- creative: “Everyone is an artist.” Lutz Mommartz’s films do not tell With this ability, all individuals temporary positions encourage us to delve more deeply into his stories. His works show what is. are called to collaborate in the great theses on the possibilities of a future conceived from the standpoint The experimental filmmaker takes social sculpture—a new society of art. a look at the fundamentals of the that redeems the ideas of freedom, In view of the discourses on the potential of cosmopolitan medium of film, such as here the equality, and fraternity. relationship between protagonists thinking that are being conducted today worldwide and with palpable 1 and viewers. For the filming of Westdeutsche Zeitung, May 2, 2018, online: urgency, Beuys’s quest for the kind of interpersonal solidarity that www.wz.de/nrw/duesseldorf/duesseldorfer-­ Soziale Plastik (Social Sculpture), avantgardefilmer-lutz-mommartz-gastiert-­ extends to encompass all living beings seems more topical than Mommartz invited Joseph Beuys in-oberhausen_aid-25604713 (accessed ever. The questions he formulated, and the tasks he set, are echoed to his apartment in Düsseldorf. November 20, 2020). During the filming, the artist was in much of today’s crisis thinking, whether in art, philosophy, asked to imagine an “anonymous politics, economics, science, or ecological endeavors. The exhibition viewer.”1 Without speaking, Beuys sets out to explore and draw upon this productive potential. gazes highly concentrated into the camera—and thus directly into the eye of the viewer. Both sides must endure the gaze of the other and thus enter into an intense dialogue. Beuys described himself as a transmitter and receiver of energy. Here, the viewer takes on this same role. Beuys always sought to enter into a dialogue and an exchange Exercise Introduction 4 Works / Positions 5 Joseph Beuys conceived a new image of the artist: He or she should Joseph Beuys Thich Nhat Hanh interfere in life. This is accompanied by the question “What is Transsibirische Bahn Oprah Winfrey talks Across and In-Between (Trans-Siberian Railway) with Thich Nhat Hanh 2018 the human being?” Beuys sees the human being as someone who 1970 2013 The artwork includes Border People’s is free and creative—an artist who seeks self-determination in a An Action for a film shot by Ole John in Video, color, sound, 21:47 min. Parliament and The Yellow Line. Created never-ending process. The prerequisite for this is a way of thinking February 1970 on the occasion of the with Cian Smyth, it involved collaborations exhibition TABERNAKEL at the Louisiana Oprah Winfrey Network with Garrett Carr, Eva Grosman, Conan that combines Western rationality and Eastern intuition. Thich Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk near McIvor, Pedro Rebelo, Helen Sharp, Helen 1 Copenhagen How can we preserve our planet? Sloan, Mark Thomas, and communities Nhat Hanh conveys the wisdom of the East to the West in order to living on the border in Ireland. Co-commis­ 16mm film, digitized, black-and-white, How can we build a just and peace- sioned by 14–18 NOW: WW1 Centenary jointly advocate freedom. Like Beuys, he sees himself as a teacher. sound, 19 min. ful world? For Thich Nhat Hanh, Art Commissions and Belfast International Festival. While Beuys initiated the Free International University as a place © Joseph Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst, the prerequisites for this are com- Bonn 2021; video on loan from the Medien- for discussion and the planning of collective action, Thich Nhat archiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst passion, attentiveness, modesty, Across and In-Between: The Yellow und Medien Karlsruhe (Joseph Beuys and the insight that all beings and Manifesto, 2018 Created with Garrett Carr, Eva Grosman, Hanh founded the Order of Interbeing, which is dedicated to “the Media Archive, Center for Art and Media things are interconnected. The Bud­- Karlsruhe) and residents on the border in Ireland, development of compassion, understanding, and committed action dhist monk and Zen master rep- print on paper, 237.8 × 168.2 cm in the individual and social spheres.” He opened several Buddhist Joseph Beuys’s Action is based on resents a committed Buddhism that Across and In-Between: Border People’s the eponymous installation from is politically and socially active for Parliament, Stormont, 2018 centers in Europe. Suzanne Lacy is concerned with diversity in 45 (of 113) black-and-white photographs 1961/69, which was initially to human and animal rights, equal by Helen Sloan, each 59.4 × 45.9 cm society and analyzes social relationships. In the spirit of Beuys, she be set up in a shed, into which one opportunities, an ecological way of is not an elitist artist. Lacy brings together people of different Across and In-Between: Voices from could only look through a small life, and peace. His interest in the Border in Ireland, 2021 backgrounds and interests who, with her as games master, realize hole with one eye. In the film, the Western philosophy and religion HD video 1080p by Conan McIvor, color, collaborative projects and performances to inspire change. camerawork simulates this view enables Thich Nhat Hanh to appeal stereo sound, 29:52 min. through the static perspective. also to Western audiences on a Courtesy the artist The camera shake evokes the fatigue spiritual level. of concentrated looking, while In the mid-1960s, Thich Nhat Using art to effect social change the double exposures remind Hanh convinced Martin Luther is the leitmotif throughout the work us of changing eyes. The swaying King Jr. and Pope Paul VI to advo- of Suzanne Lacy. She herself calls of the camera also emphasizes cate an end to the Vietnam War. her art “public.” Since the early the motif of the journey—a journey He was a member of the Buddhist 1970s, when she became a key figure that connects Europe and Asia delegation to the peace negotiations in the feminist movement in Cali- like the Trans-Siberian Railway in Paris in 1969. His commitment fornia, she has addressed social connects Moscow and Vladi- to peace displeased the government and political issues in performances, vostok. In his Action, Beuys lends in Saigon—so much so that he was installations, videos, and photo- artistic expression to the fusion not allowed to return to his home- graphs. She often works collectively he strives for between the West, land. However, he continued to with other artists, experts in various determined by reason and intellect, promote social projects in Vietnam disciplines, and affected groups and the East, characterized by and supported the boat people around the world. spirituality and intuition—which, who fled the country. In France, Lacy’s art leaves the exhibition moreover, were at the time opposed Thich Nhat Hanh founded the space. It goes directly into life. to each other in two mutually Buddhist center Plum Village in For example, Lacy’s Across and In- hostile power blocs. Only in this 1982, and in , the Euro­ Between project involved over 300 way can the utopia of a new human pean Institute for Applied Buddhism people on both sides of the Irish community be realized. in 2008. border from communities in the At the same time, the Action countryside where the demarcation embodies the path from traditional line is not visible. Participants art to the expanded concept of were invited to express their feelings art. The canvases are turned with and hopes for the region. In vari- their fronts facing the wall. For ous Actions, they marked the invis- Beuys, art was more than painting, ible border as The Yellow Line. as it were. According to his under- Finally, 150 border residents gath- standing, art was a process, art ered for the Border People’s Parlia- was politics; the task of art was to ment at the Northern Ireland create the social sculpture, in which Parliament building. From their all people were called upon to responses to questions about participate. the Irish border, the writer Garrett Carr developed The Yellow Mani- festo: A true account of a border and its people. Exercise Introduction 6 Works / Positions 7 Beuys fought for direct democracy. Angela Davis calls for the “aboli- then flown out to a special clinic mother. Coming from urban High Line Park, drew attention tion of democracy,” which, in her opinion, is characterized in the in England. The assassination at- dance, he studied choreography to ongoing social problems tempt did not stop her from contin- in and is active today as in the United States and reflects United States by racism and capitalism. Michel Houellebecq predicts uing to demand the right to edu- a choreographer, director, curator, Leonard’s commitment. “I want the destruction of society. The Milk Tee Alliance demonstrates cation for all children from her exile and lecturer. a dyke for president. I want how the commitment of individuals to new ideas can become a mass in the UK. On the contrary, she Hillebrand conducts projects a person with aids for president movement based on solidarity. Masala Yousafzai, too, was initially has become known worldwide as worldwide with young people, and I want a fag for vice president 2 a result and receives support from to whom he strives to convey self- and I want someone with no a lone fighter for the right to education for women; today, she politicians and the United Nations. esteem and courage. At the same health insurance […].” is a role model for millions of others. International Criminal Court In 2014, Malala Yousafzai was time, he develops choreographies Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda advocates human rights. The awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to- with professional, often local lawyer Christopher D. Stone fights to give natural objects the status gether with the Indian social reform- dancers, whether from the field Phyllida Barlow er Kailash Satyarthi, who cam- of urban dance or ballet. In working STREET : banners of persons in environmental law, something Beuys also saw as paigns against the exploitation of with others, as he says himself, 2010 a mandate. Raphael Moussa Hillebrand fights against racism and children. he finds his best ideas. In 2020, Fabric, timber, Styrofoam, cement, cotton discrimination with dance, while Zoe Leonard and Jenny Holzer Hillebrand was honored by the jury fabric, c. 400 × 900 × 500 cm (installation work as visual artists with texts. Phyllida Barlow sees “sculpture of the German Dance Prize in the dimensions) Raphael Moussa Hillebrand category Outstanding Artistic Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich as language,” with which she gives physical presence to “non-visual Von der Straße auf die Bühne: Developments in Dance. In 2017, experiences.” Like Beuys, Goshka Macuga is convinced that, in Raphael Hillebrand the artist co-founded the Berlin-­ Phyllida Barlow’s sculptures are thinking about the future, not only all people, but also all living (From the Street to the Stage: based minor party Die Urbane. Eine large. They fill the space in such a beings and the earth should have a voice. Raphael Hillebrand) HipHop Partei (The Urban: A Hip- way that one can hardly experience 2020 Hop Party), which advocates, among them from a distance. And yet Television broadcast of the program other things, equal rights for all, they are not sculptures “with Drehscheibe, ZDF climate protection, equal opportuni- a capital ‘S,’” as the British artist Video, color, sound, 6:29 min. ties in education and work, and puts it. They are not monumental, global peace. but provisional and alive, as if ZDF and Raphael Moussa Hillebrand they could be changed at any time. Ein Kubaner in Chemnitz Barlow deliberately processes (A Cuban in Chemnitz) Zoe Leonard everyday materials such as fabric, 2020 I want a president cardboard, plywood, plaster, 1992 cement, paint, plastic, and foam From the series Unterdrückung – Selbst­ in an artless manner so that the ermächtigung – Befreiung (Suppression— Typewritten text on paper, 27.9 × 21.6 cm Joseph Beuys Christian-Moebuss had challenged Malala Yousafzai Self-Empowerment—Liberation) traces of production remain visible. Boxkampf für direkte Demo­ Beuys in a heated discussion with Christina Lamb Courtesy the artist, Galerie Gisela Before the sculptor achieved Interpretation: Yester Mulens Garcia; Capitain, Cologne, and Hauser & Wirth, kratie durch Volksab­ about direct referendum and the I am Malala: The Story of Camera Operator: Yester Mulens Garcia; © Zoe Leonard her international breakthrough stimmung “Abschiedsaktion”­ democratically constituted party a Girl Who Stood Up for Artistic Director: Raphael Moussa in 2010 after a long artistic and / Hillebrand; Choreography: Raphael (Boxing Match for Direct state in the office of the Orga­ Education and Was Shot by Moussa Hillebrand, Yester Mulens Garcia; The art of the US-American pho- teaching career, she repeatedly Democracy through Referen­ nization for Direct Democracy by the Taliban Color Correction: Lea Bethke; Music: tographer and sculptor Zoe Leonard destroyed her sculptures and reused Nuuki, Perspektiven Zählen; A production dum / “Farewell Action”) Referendum. The office was Beuys’s 2013 of Ballett Chemnitz is political. The observation and the materials. Economic necessity 1972 official contribution to the docu- questioning of social developments became an artistic strategy. As menta. Founded by him—together London: Orion Publishing Group Courtesy the artist and Städtisches form the background of her multi- with STREET untitled: banners— An Action together with Abraham David Theater Chemnitz, Ballett Chemnitz, Christian-Moebuss on October 8, 1972 with Johannes Stüttgen and Karl Book Production "Made in Chemnitz 20|20" faceted photographs and instal­ which evokes a forest of banners at 3:00 p. m., at the Museum Fastabend—at Andreasstrasse 25 in lations. In 1992, Leonard caused at a demonstration—her works Fridericianum, Düsseldorf in 1971, the Organiza- Malala Yousafzai was fifteen years Video Loop of Decolonial a sensation with her appearance invite viewers to make their way Documentation by Karl Oskar Blase (super- tion for Direct Democ­racy by old when, on October 9, 2012, Resistance at documenta 9. In the Neue Galerie through or along them, sometimes vision), Walter Cuntze (camera): video, 2019 digitized, black-and-white, sound, 9:32 min. Referendum pursued the goal of members­ of the Taliban stormed in Kassel, she replaced portraits even to stoop down. The experi- renewing society through the her school bus, asked for her, Video, color, sound, 4:50 min. (loop) of men with photographs of female ence of Phyllida Barlow’s sculptures Karl Oskar Blase Estate © Joseph Beuys cooperation of each individual and and shot her in the face. After the genitalia she had taken herself, opens up further possibilities Estate and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021; Choreography, Interpretation, and video on loan from the Medienarchiv shaping it into a social sculpture. Taliban took power in Yousafzai’s Concept: Raphael Moussa Hillebrand; which now hung next to the baroque for ref lection and goes beyond the Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst und For documenta 5, Beuys moved the home region, the Swat Valley Music: Prolific the Rapper feat. John portraits of women. In doing so, concrete engagement with the Medien Karlsruhe (Joseph Beuys Media Trudel, It’s not over; Camera Operator: Archive, Center for Art and Media information office to Kassel. He in Pakistan’s hinterland, she had Naoto Hiéda; Place: Academy of Per- she drew attention to the fact that objects themselves—in the artist’s Karlsruhe) was present there on a daily basis dared to speak out against the forming Arts Hong Kong in both the still male-dominated words, “like walking through a and discussed tirelessly with vis- reign of terror and continued going Courtesy the artist art scene and in museums, women landscape.” On the last day of documenta 5, itors. His expanded concept of art to school. Through the mediation appear primarily as objects. In a boxing match took place in the explicitly encompassed language of a friend of her father, an educa- Dancing as a democratic exercise— the 1980s and ’90s, Zoe Leonard Fridericianum in Kassel in the and speech as a sculptural process tion activist, she had blogged this is an important aspect of became involved as an activist Goshka Macuga room dedicated to the French Swiss that was to contribute to the under a pseudonym for the BBC’s Raphael Moussa Hillebrand’s artis- against discrimination against Make Tofu Not War artist Ben Vautier. The shaping of the social sculpture. website about the Taliban’s terror tic work. He is concerned with people with AIDS. She spoke up 2018 opponents: Joseph Beuys and the and oppression of girls and women the equality of all people and for equal rights for African Ameri- 3D wool tapestry, 293 × 447 cm; sculptor Abraham David Christian when she was only eleven years the courage to live and represent cans and the concerns of queer edition: 5 + 1 AP (then Christian-Moebuss), an art old. She soon also made public this ideal without compromise. communities. Private Collection student of Beuys and, like the latter, appearances and reported under Dancing helped him to come to Her text I want a president a documenta participant. The her real name. terms with the racist discrimina- (1992), displayed in 2016 as Goshka Macuga pursues an expand- referee was Anatol Herzfeld. Beuys In an emergency operation, tion he experienced as the son a monumental banner on one of ed concept of the artist. She won after three rounds, on points. Malala Yousafzai was rescued and of an African father and a German the retaining walls of New York’s not only uses the artistic genres Works / Positions 8 Works / Positions 9 of painting, drawing, collage, tea with milk, which is not common and Lithuania—are being inves­ Jenny Holzer Activist, civil rights campaigner, the works of the French historian sculpture, film, photography, and in the People’s Republic of China. tigated. The United States therefore VOTE YOUR FUTURE feminist, and philosopher Angela and politician Alexis de Tocque- installation, but also slips into the The protests of the movement imposed sanctions on Bensouda 2018 Davis, an icon of the civil rights ville. In 1831/32, Tocqueville roles of curator, collector, and have now reached the streets. in 2020 and banned her from enter- movement of the 1970s, would traveled to the United States on Text: VOTE YOUR FUTURE by March for scholar. Thus, in her installations, People arrange to meet as flash ing the country. Our Lives, Jenny Holzer, and many others, like to see the younger generation behalf of the French government. the Polish British conceptual artist mobs. Their equipment includes Los Angeles, 2018 engaged across differences In his two-volume work Democ- often uses—in addition to her hard hats and goggles, gas masks of gender, sexual orientation, racy in America, he described 3 color photographs, each 46.7 × 70 cm own objects—works by other artists, and umbrellas. Similar to the Christopher D. Stone and ethnicity. the dangers that could emanate found objects, archival material, so-called Umbrella Movement Should Trees Have Courtesy the artist, © 2018 Jenny Holzer, From 1968 to 1991, Davis from democracy and capitalism. ARS, photos: Collin LaFleche (images 1 and literature. Macuga links art in Hong Kong in 2014, people com- a Standing? Law, Morality, and 2: LED bus); © 2018 Jenny Holzer, ARS, was a member of the Communist A new, “soft” dictatorship with social, political, historical, municate during the demonstra- and the Environment photo: Ed Mumford (image 3: LED truck) Party (CPUSA). In 1970, she can emerge in which the state philosophical, and scientific events tions via a code of hand signals 2010 was among the ten most wanted takes everything from the people, and questions. In doing so, she or whisper Chinese words that “Abuse of Power Comes As No criminals in the United States. who are only interested in money, Klein Jasedow: thinkOya uncovers hidden or repressed refer- are passed from mouth to mouth. (american first edition 1972) Surprise” and other laconic one-­­ The starting point was her advo- consumption, and pleasure. ences. The artist attaches great Protesters in Hong Kong and Book liners by Jenny Holzer appeared cacy for the release of Black prison- They revolve solely around them- social importance to art and culture, Thailand have been subjected to in large LED lettering on a bill- ers, including George Jackson. selves and no longer assume which enable experiences that massive violence by the state, Christopher D. Stone is an expert board in , New York When the latter’s brother tried to any social responsibility, either contribute to the emancipation with deaths, injuries, and arrests. on international environmental in 1982. Amid the many neon signs, free him from the courtroom, he in private or in public life. of the individual and the cohesion law and professor emeritus at a message that made one stop killed four people with a gun owned of society. t he Un iversit y of Sout her n Ca l i for n ia and think. Text has been the US- by Davis. Davis was subsequently Macuga’s themes are embed- Fatou Bensouda at Los Angeles. As a young lawyer, American artist ’s form of expression charged with murder, hostage-­ ded in the complex of the history The Life and Times of an Stone set a milestone in the legal since the mid-1970s, after she taking, and conspiracy. As a result, of humanity. The 3D tapestry Make International War Crimes and ethical debate over human- had first devoted herself to abstract the “Free Angela” movement Tofu Not War conveys little pros- Prosecutor: Fatou Bensouda, kind’s relationship with nature. painting. Initially pasted as formed around the world and be- pect of good progress. The Tower ICC Deputy Prosecutor In 1966, the Walt Disney posters, the writing soon appeared came a symbol of the struggle of Babel on the right in the back- 2 011 Company planned to develop a with modern computer technology against the abuse of justice against ground represents the hubris ski resort in California’s Mineral on LED signs and as projections minorities. In 1972, Angela Davis of humankind. People dressed as Fatou Bensouda in conversation with King Valley. The oldest conser­ on walls of buildings, as well was acquitted. wolves, reindeer, and polar bears Prof. Leila Sadat, Washington University vation organization in the USA, as on buses, T-shirts, and postcards. Angela Davis is convinced warn with protest posters. Are Video, color, sound, 36:18 min. the Sierra Club, filed a suit—legally Holzer’s conceptual text work that capitalism, racism, and sexism animals wiser? In any case, as Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, unpromising because the project ranges from Truisms and political are inextricably intertwined. To a result of their behavior, humans © 2011 Washington University would not have personally harmed messages—which she has placed this day, she advocates for peace, are on the verge of destroying the plaintiffs’ rights. This is in public especially since Donald women’s rights, better working nature, their own basis of existence, Fatou Bensouda is convinced where Stone came in. He suggest- Trump’s election—to color revisions conditions, health care, and the as well as themselves. that “every single person can do ed the Valley itself as a plaintiff of American documents about abolition of prisons. something … to change the world.” since entities such as business war and intelligence operations. She herself draws strength for corporations are also considered For the German Bundestag, Milk Tea Alliance her task as Chief Prosecutor of “legal persons.” In 1972, Stone she installed a stela in the Reichstag Michel Houellebecq How demonstrators the International Criminal Court published his seminal plea under building on which LED lettering Houellebecq, Tocqueville, in Thailand marshal anti- (ICC) in The Hague from her pas- the title Should Trees Have Stand- runs with 447 speeches by Reichs­ Democracy government protests sionate conviction that she can ing? Toward Legal Rights for tag and Bundestag members 2 011 with hand signs thus give a voice to the defenseless Natural Objects. The dispute finally from 1871, the year the Reich was Michel Houellebecq in conversation with October 18, 2020 victims of genocide, war crimes, ended in 1978 with the congres­ founded, to 1999, when the building Sylvain Bourmeau crimes against humanity, and sional decision to annex the was reopened after reconstruction. Video, color, sound, 3:28 min. aggression. Before becoming the valley to Sequoia National Park— “Enlightenment as Program” was Video, color, sound, 7:14 min. first woman to be elected to her the official end of the proposed the title of an article in the Frank- Sylvain Bourmeau Screenocean/Reuters and South China Morning Post post in 2011, the Gambian jurist ski area. furter Allgemeine Zeitung on had been Deputy Prosecutor Christopher D. Stone’s think- Jenny Holzer’s seventieth birthday— Some honor him for his literary In 2020, the transnational Milk at the ICC since 2004. That period ing spurred the development of an apt formulation. work, in which they appreciate Tea Alliance, a democratic solidarity included the trial of Thomas environmental law and the under- the precise language and lucid de- movement comprised of netizens Lubanga, a Congolese militia standing of nature as a value scription of the state of Western from Thailand, Hong Kong, and leader blamed for massacres of in itself. Nevertheless, there is Angela Davis society, while others accuse him Taiwan, emerged on the Internet. civilians, rape, and forced recruit- still much to be done before this Angela Davis on feminism, of being a New Right reactionary: In addition to their advocacy for ment of child soldiers during the becomes widely accepted—as communism, and being a racist, misogynist, Islamophobic democratic rights, they are united Second Congo War. From 2002 to regular new editions of Stone’s Black Panther during the civil —Michel Houellebecq is radical by their protest against China’s 2004, Bensouda was a legal adviser book prove. rights movement and controversial. The writer claims power politics. In Hong Kong, at the International Criminal 2018 freedom of thought. He criticizes the People’s Republic is breaking Tribunal for Rwanda. the narcissism and materialism Angela Davis in conversation with Matt the guarantee of civil liberties The ICC is currently investigat- Frei, Channel 4 News, London of the West, as well as the loss given when the former British crown ing war crimes and crimes against of spiritual values. The characters colony was handed over in 1997, humanity in Afghanistan. It is Video, color, sound, 31:46 min. of his novels are self-centered, threatening to annex Taiwan into also focusing on possible crimes Channel 4 News / Getty Images unemotional, and out of touch. the motherland by force, and increas - com­mitted by the US military and Their lives are unfulfilling and ing Chinese influence in South- the US foreign intelligence agency, The struggle continues. As it was without hope. east Asia. The alliance’s name the CIA. Secret CIA prisons—in- fifty years ago, racism remains Houellebecq finds his ideas alludes to the habit of drinking cluding those in Poland, Romania, a problem in US society to this day. already precisely formulated in Exercise Introduction 10 Works / Positions 11 Joseph Beuys 2 Bob Dylan Joseph Beuys and Pope.L bemused people with actions in which Joseph Beuys, in: Joseph Beuys, ed. Caroline they subjected themselves to ridicule. The aim was to reveal social ö ö Programm (ö ö Program) Tisdall, exh. cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Murder Most Foul 1967 Museum, New York (London, 1979), p. 30 ; 2020 role assignments and conflicts. With the ö ö Program performed quoted in Uwe M. Schneede, Joseph Beuys: An Action together with Henning Chris- Die Aktionen. Kommentiertes Werkver ­ Audio recording, 16:56 min. during the matriculation ceremony at the Düsseldorf Academy tiansen in the auditorium of the Staatliche zeichnis mit fotografischen Dokumentationen Kunstakademie (State Academy of (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1994), p. 203. © 2020 by Special Rider Music / of Art in 1967, Beuys violated conventions. With his nonconformist Art), Düsseldorf on the occasion of the Universal Music Publishing Group behavior, he took sides with the student protests against the war matriculation ceremony on November 30, 3 1967 In 2020, Bob Dylan published generation of and the antiquated structures of West Pope.L Photograph by Volker Krämer the song Murder Most Foul. The German society. In 1978, Pope.L, who holds Beuys in high esteem, (repro­duction) The Great White Way, 22 miles, 5 years, 1 street US folk and rock musician and Nobel chose the public street as a location for crawling performances. © Nachlass Volker Krämer Estate, Laureate for Literature borrowed Hamburg, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 (Segment #1: His point of departure was homelessness in New York in the 1970s. December 29, 2001) the title from the drama Hamlet by 2001– 06 William Shakespeare. There, the With his “crawls,” he made the public aware of the misery of the “Professor bellt ins murder of Hamlet’s father, the King street and practiced solidarity with the weak. In doing so, he was Mikrophon! Düsseldorf: CRT monitor, and resin; video, color, sound, 6:35 min, edition: 5 + 1 AP of Denmark, is described by his not perceived as an individual, but rather as a representative of Akademie-” ghost as “Murder most foul.” Bob (“Professor Barks into a Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Black Americans. Law enforcement officers and passersby were Nash, New York Dylan relates the words to the Microphone! Düsseldorf: assassination of US President unwilling to allow this “humiliation of a Black man,” unaware that Academy Happening”) “Friendliest Black Artist in Amer- John F. Kennedy on November 22, Pope.L himself had commissioned the white cameraman who December 1, 1967 ica” can be read on Pope.L’s calling 1963; and in the song, he takes filmed him. Both artists used embarrassing situations to create Newspaper article by Alexander Goeb, card. This sounds amusing; at the different perspectives on the assas- in: EXPRESS, Cologne, December 1, same time, however, it is an allusion sination, including that of the discomfort in order to break down power relations. 1967 (reproduction) to the fear many white Americans victim himself. On a second level, With the kind support of the Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln (University have of their African American Dylan quotes film titles and pop and Library of Cologne) fellow citizens. Pope.L’s work focus- culture musicians from the last es on social, gender, and ecologi- fifty years. After the welcoming address by cal issues. His media include paint- With John F. Kennedy, the Eduard Trier, director of the acad­- ing, video, photography, installa- bearer of hope for America’s awaken- emy, and a speech by Karl Bobek, tion, and performance, which often ing and renewal, for peace and Professor for Sculpture, Joseph takes place on the street. In 1997, justice, was laid to rest. In 1965, Beuys, at the time Professor for wearing only shorts, with a skir t of the United States officially entered Monumental Sculpture, stepped dollar bills over them, he tied him- the Vietnam War. The disillusioned up to the microphone. In his trouser self to the door of a bank with a young generation found their anti- pocket was an axe with a broken, chain of sausages, intending to give bourgeois, socially critical, and split handle. Instead of a speech, each passerby a dollar bill—which pacifist protest attitude reflected he emitted the sounds “ö ö” a security guard quickly prevented. in Bob Dylan’s songs—such as The for approximately four minutes. ATM Piece was a reaction to the Times They Are a-Changin’ and The Fluxus composer Henning ban on panhandling near automat- Masters of War. Blowin’ in the Wind Chris­tiansen played two of his own ed teller machines (ATMs) enacted became the anthem of the anti- pieces from a tape as well as the by then-Mayor of New York Rudy war movement. And this, although phrase “Rastplatz bitte sauber Giuliani. Bob Dylan has always asserted that halten” (Please keep the rest area Since 1978, Pope.L has used he is not politically minded. clean), to which he silently moved crawling performances to draw his mouth, several times. Finally, attention to his concerns. From Beuys brought the axe to Chris- 2001 to 2009, he crawled in stages tiansen’s chest as if taking an along Broadway wearing a Super- oath, which Christiansen returned man costume. Because of its lavish with the same gesture. lighting, the street is also known The axe, a symbol of strength, as “The Great White Way.” Pope.L had a ritual significance for Beuys. uses this epithet as an ambiguous By placing it on the heart, he trans- title for the performance: The formed it into an “inner weapon” wealth and the world of commodi- that imparts energy.2 Beuys’s sounds ties that characterize Broadway imitated the roaring of stags. The are primarily reserved for white (white) stag, whose fur was used people. as priestly clothing by the Celts and represents Christ in Christian symbolism, possessed spiritual powers for Beuys. At the same time, the sounds are language that does not denote a concept, the pure mate- rial that is formed in the sculp- tural process—to which Beuys also included speech. Exercise Introduction 12 Exercise Introduction 13 Joseph Beuys overtly cultivated the habitus of a savior. He thus Joseph Beuys’s expanded concept of art is based on the assumption performed Christian acts such as foot washing and baptism. For that every human being has the potential to continually change Action in the Moor, he stood in the form of a cross in front of a and to be creatively active. For this, the artist found the figure of bunker and appeared to walk across the water like Christ. However, the nomad, the inquisitive wanderer, who in his or her thinking he also submerged himself in it— as a person seeking healing in and acting overcomes the boundaries between East and West, 4 nature. Beuys did not want to be a savior. But he was convinced of 5 between ratio and intuition, between capitalism and communism. a “higher ego” of every human being, “in whom Christ lives.” His He understood the figure as a political tool, as he demonstrated expanded concept of art attributed to every individual the ability to in the action EURASIAN STAFF, 82 min fluxorum organum. Beuys work on improving society, the great social sculpture, which identified himself with the nomadic cultures of Eurasia. Accord- brings redemption. ing to the myth he invented, having been healed by Tatars with felt At the time when Beuys emerged on the scene with his and fat after his plane crash in World War II, he was invited by actions, the youth was rebelling against the war generation of their them to become one of their own. parents with hippie culture, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and In 1979, Tuan Andrew Nguyen fled as a three-year-old with student revolts. The anti-establishment pop musicians were revered his family to the United States and recently returned to Vietnam. like saints: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon—to name but His work explores how the experiences of refugees, migrants, and a few—as well as Patti Smith. Like Beuys, Smith is committed nomads complement each other. Despite all the losses and suffering, to a just society based on love. In order to create this, people do not he sees emancipatory potential in migration. The figure of the need a savior, but a common commitment. As Patti Smith sings: nomad stands for the constant re-conception of oneself and the “We Have the Power.” And as Beuys said, “Everyone is an artist.” exchange of knowledge and experience with others.

Joseph Beuys Moors are habitats of great impor- “Outside of Society, They’re Waitin’ Joseph Beuys nothing new can emerge. Made of individual memories. These concern Aktion im Moor tance for the world’s climate and for Me, Outside of Society, That’s EURASIENSTAB, 82 min the excellent heat conductor copper, Vietnamese history and culture, (Action in the Moor) the entire ecosystem. Beuys em- Where I Want to Be,” Patti Smith fluxorum organum the staff was for Beuys also a the colonization and decolonization 1971 phasized this importance several sang in Rock N Roll Nigger in (EURASIA STAFF, 82 min. transmitter of spiritual energy. He of Southeast Asia, and experiences times in conversations. At the 1978. “Nigger” here means a person fluxorum organum) symbolically took the energy from of war and flight. His video The An Action in Eindhoven, Netherlands, probably on August 16, 1971 same time, however, the moor was who is outside of society—Jimi 1967 / 68 the light bulb—a symbol of knowled- Boat People was produced in Bataan for him a mystical storehouse Hendri x, Jackson Pollock, her g rand- The Action was performed twice: on July 2, ge and truth—and coated the felt in the Philippines. In 1975, the 4 black-and-white photographs by 1967 at 8:00 p. m. in the Galerie nächst Gianfranco Gorgoni (reproductions) of spiritual energy. Beuys believed mother, and Jesus Christ are men- corners with it. With these, he had country played a significant role St. Stephan, Vienna, and—together with that, if they wanted a future, tioned in the lyrics. The piece struck Henning Christiansen—on February 9, marked a rectangular space re- in preparing for the resettlement © Maya Gorgoni, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 humans must return to nature. a chord with Smith’s rebellious 1968 at 8:00 p. m. at the Wide White Space presentative of the principle of solid- of refugees from the Vietnam War The concrete bunker here is a generation. At the same time, it Gallery, Antwerp ified reason. In Beuys’s cosmos, to North America, Europe, and On the car ride from Düsseldorf reminder of war and injury, of the is an affirmation of life as an artist. Henning Christiansen (sound), Paul de Fru the West stands for science and Australia. (camera), 16mm film, digitalized, black- to the exhibition of his installa- wounds of society that need to Patti Smith, the “Godmother and-white, sound, 22:46 min. ratio, the East for spirituality and They came across the sea as tion voglio vedere i miei montagne be healed—this healing is implied of Punk,” is a poet, rock musician, intuition. In the “Eurasian Staff,” boat people—Cambodians, Laotians, (I want to see my mountains) in in the crucifixion pose. Beuys performance artist, painter, © Joseph Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst West and East are metaphorically and especially Vietnamese. The Bonn 2021; video on loan from the Medien- Eindhoven, Beuys—accompanied wanted to open up the possibility and photographer. She initially archiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst united. Only the interaction of boat people in Nguyen’s video are by the photographers Ute Klophaus of developing a new, free and just saw singing as a way to perform und Medien Karlsruhe (Joseph Beuys both worlds can lead to true knowl- five children, led by an assertive Media Archive, Center for Art and Media and Gianfranco Gorgoni—passed society. her poetry. Her early encounter Karlsruhe) edge and the solution of the girl. They go ashore, where they are a swamp. There, the artist per- with Bob Dylan and his poetry problems of humanity. all alone. The children find head- formed a spontaneous Action that was seminal for her. Her reverence The film shows a summarization less Buddha statues, Christian lasted roughly ha lf an hour. Beuys Patti Smith for the French poet Arthur Rim- of the Action. Beuys repeated figures, dates and names carved followed the startled birds through People Have the Power baud goes so far that, in 2017, Smith the Antwerp version in full length Tuan Andrew Nguyen in stone, the words “made by Lao the marshland and imitated their April 21, 2019 bought his house in the village of for t he f i lm ing. From t his, Henning The Boat People refugees,” and a museum of photo- movement. With his face to the Roche in the Ardennes. The com- Christiansen selected certain parts 2020 graphs and guns. Humanity Live performance of the song by Patti wall, he leaned in a crucifixion Smith from 1988 by the artist together with panion of Robert Mapplethorpe and of the Action for the final film. Single-channel video, 4K, Super 16mm seems to have ceased to exist. Only pose against a bunker-like concrete Choir! Choir! Choir! and the audience wife of Fred “Sonic” Smith, with The staff is reminiscent of transferred to digital, color, 5.1 surround the found objects can tell the young structure, went inside and stopped, at the Onassis Festival 2019: Democracy whom she has two children, shaped a shepherd’s crook, like those used sound, 20 min.; edition: 5 + 2 AP (# 3/5) “Boat People” about what it once Is Coming, New York. (JCG11340) notebook in hand. Outside, he an—also sexually—self-determined by nomads wandering with their was. Video, color, sound, 6:59 min., excerpt: Courtesy the artist and James Cohan, jumped around among the water- image of women. As the artist put herds of animals. Nomads do not New York holes, submerging himself several 00:37–05:41 it: “Freedom means that I don’t submit to a rigid order; they are in times fully clothed up to the brim Courtesy Choir! Choir! Choir! let other people determine me. Out- constant motion. Beuys understood With his sculptures, videos, and of his hat. He smeared his left hand side of society—that’s where I want movement as a basic condition of installations, Tuan Andrew Nguyen and sleeve with mud. to be.” the sculptural process. Without it, explores historical traditions and Exercise Introduction 14 Works / Positions 15 John Dillinger—the most wanted bank robber in the United States tures and methods responsible Edward Snowden in the world because of its crime during the Great Depression around 1930, whose shooting Beuys for them, in an effort to undermine NSA whistleblower Edward rate—marked by violence, high in- these with very concrete projects. Snowden: “I don’t want to live carceration rates, drug abuse, re-enacted in Chicago—was a hero to many contemporaries. In their In this way, she can help those in a society that does these and broken families. The B-Town eyes, he rightly stole from the rich—despite the fact that he did not affected and at the same time trig- sort of things” Warriors want to encourage their distribute the loot to the poor. Joseph Beuys appreciated the cre­ ger public debate. Güell often oper- June 6, 2013 generation and tell a different ativity of “action artists” such as Dillinger. In his view, creativity is ates on the edge of illegality. She Edward Snowden in conversation with story of their city: With the help 6 uses the autonomy of art, which the British newspaper The Guardian in a of Desert Pea Media and the Out- intrinsically value-free; good or evil are the ends for which it is enjoys social freedom, as a protec- hotel room in Hong Kong back Division of General Prac- used. “It’s hard to imagine what would have happened,” Beuys said, tive shield, as she herself says, Video, color, sound, 12:34 min. tice, Bourke High School students if Dillinger’s energy had been “pointed in the right direction.” to undermine the capitalist and Guardian News & Media have discovered hip hop as their The B-Town Warriors, a group of Original Nations school students exploitative system. form of expression. The actual “I do not want to live in a world mission of the Outback Division from the Australian town of Bourke, a “lost city,” are calling for where everything I do and say is to provide primary health care just that. They take on the role of “outlaws” assigned to them and Santiago Sierra is recorded,” said Edward Snowden, to remote regions of western turn it into something positive. In contrast, Núria Güell insti- Destroyed Word: Several arguably the most famous whistle- New South Wales, while Desert Pea gates the collective expropriation of banks as a modern Robin Hood. Locations, October 2010 – blower of recent years. As an ex- Media is a non-profit institution October 2012 ternal employee of the US foreign that works with Indigenous young The looted money is used for social and political projects. Santiago intelligence agency NSA, he re- people in remote areas to create Sierra exposes parasitic strategies by using them himself. Edward Ten-channel HD video installation, vealed in 2013 the global surveil- audiovisual projects. Desert Pea black-and-white, sound, 24:08 min. Snowden used his creative energy to break the law for moral lance—even in the absence of Media works with local institutions reasons—celebrated as a hero by some and branded as a traitor by Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin suspicion—of millions of people’s to promote social and cultural Internet and telecommunications dialogue between communities and others. According to Santiago Sierra, cap- connections by the NSA and the build a shared Australian culture. italism is sadism. In the mid-1990s, GCHQ, the British government’s The B-Town Warriors’ song line he began employing poor people secret intelligence and security “Get up and rewrite your story!” at low wages for his performances. service. In Hong Kong, Snowden is an encouraging call to action. For example, he had a continuous handed over the documentary line tattooed on the backs of six evidence to the British newspaper young Cubans standing next to each The Guardian. The United States other in exchange for $30 each. unsuccessfully demanded his He also paid African street vendors extradition. Because they invali­ in Venice $60 to have their hair dated his passport, Snowden’s Joseph Beuys the movie theater and spontaneous- Núria Güell dyed blond. Sierra documents his escape accidentally ended in Mos- Dillinger ly acted it out in the role of the Displaced Legal Application performances with black-and-white cow, where he has lived in exile 1974 gangster boss. In an interview with #1: Fractional Reserve: photographs and videos. ever since. An Action outside the Biograph Theater in Klaus Staeck, the artist confessed: How to expropriate money Since the 2000s, the Spanish Snowden is aware of having Chicago on January 14, 1974, on the artist’s “Yes, I have always lived with from the banks conceptual artist has been exposing broken laws. But he acted in the first trip to the US the ideas of John Dillinger who was Barcelona, 2010/11 the structural problems of politics belief that everyone has a duty Filmed by Klaus Staeck and Gerhard Steidl also a lone wolf […]. I place great Installation, blackboard: 120 × 400 cm, man­ and society with words made of to violate national laws to prevent (camera), video, digitized, black-and-white, value in the energy that is involved ual: 19 cm high; video: 60 min. oversized letters. In Ciudad Juárez a crime against peace and hu­man- sound, 21:57 min. in a biography like that of John Courtesy the artist and ADN Galería on the border between Mexico ity. The world is now warned, © Joseph Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst Dillinger. This energy, which had and Texas, he dug the word SUM“ - even though Snowden fears that Bonn 2021; video on loan from the Medien- archiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst a negative orientation in Dillinger’s How can one take money away from ISIÓN” (submission) into the the US and other countries will und Medien Karlsruhe (Joseph Beuys case, can also give off positive banks? During the 2008 financial ground in letters measuring fifteen refine their methods using artifi- Media Archive, Center for Art and Media 3 Karlsruhe) impulses.” Beuys recognized crisis, banks around the world were meters in height. They were to be cial intelligence to monitor and a great creative potential in people bailed out with taxpayers’ money. filled with gasoline and set on fire, record everyone’s lives seamlessly, In January 1974, Joseph Beuys like Dillinger or even Hitler, According to Núria Güell, the ball but authorities prevented this. together with the major Internet traveled to the United States for the which they had, however, “used is now in the citizens’ court. The Between 2010 and 2012, Sierra companies. first time, accompanied by Klaus nega­tively” and “against the Spanish artist has given lectures had letters measuring three meters Staeck, among others. In Chicago, people.”4 and workshops on the subject in height produced for Destroyed they happened to pass an old movie and published a guide with strate- Word in ten countries around the B-Town Warriors 3 theater, the Biograph. It had once Joseph Beuys, in Klaus Staeck and Gerhard gies and legal advice. Just as banks world, which together made up Rewrite Your Story g a i ne d fa me t h r ou g h a n i nc ident t h a t Steidl (eds.), Beuys in Amerika (, create money under the fractional the word “CAPITALISM.” He then 2017 had gone through the world press. 1987), p. 210; quoted in: Schneede 1994 reserve system that is only partially had them publicly destroyed. The (see note 2), p. 325. Quoted in English in Music video, color, sound, 2:58 min. On July 23, 1934, the long-sought Michael Wolfson, “Joseph Beuys,” trans. secured by credit balances, she individual letters were made of gangster boss John Dillinger had Michael Wolfson, in Susanne McDowel l and suggests taking out loans with ficti- a material important to the econ- Desert Pea Media Robert Simon (eds.), Beuys / Ulrichs. been shot dead by police in the adja- ICH-Kunst DU-Kunst WIR-Kunst: Joseph tious collateral and declaring bank- omy of the respective country— cent alley after visiting the movie Beuys und T imm U lr ich im Kun stmu seum Celle ruptcy after a few repayment in Germany, the letter T was made B-Town is the nickname of the small mit Sammlung Robert Simon (Celle, 2007), theater. Because of numerous bank pp. 11–73, here pp. 22–23. installments. of insulating foam. Australian town of Bourke in the robberies and police killings by This action is just one of many north of the state of New South 4 his gang and various escapes from Joseph Beuys, in: “‘Ich bin ein ganz scharfer with which Güell strives to anchor Wales, approximately 800 km north- prison, Dillinger was considered Hase’: Joseph Beuys im Gespräch mit art in real life. It is not enough west of Sydney. Roughly 3,000 Birgit Lahann,” Stern 19, April 30 (1981); at the time to be “America’s Public quoted in Schneede 1994 (see note 2), for her to merely point out unethical people live there, including many Enemy No. 1.” Beuys immediately p. 325 [translated]. and antisocial practices. She is Aborigines. In 2013, Bourke was thought of the incident when he saw intensively concerned with the struc- ranked the most dangerous place Exercise Introduction 16 Works / Positions 17 The machine is the basis for the success of capitalism. For some, Joseph Beuys The Otolith Group it brought wealth, for others unemployment. For Beuys, art Honigpumpe am Arbeitsplatz O Horizon was capital. Even more influential for him than Karl Marx’s text (Honey Pump at the 2018 Workplace) Video installation, HD video, color, sound, Das Kapital was the teaching of the anthroposophist Rudolf 1977 90 min.

Steiner, who between 1917 and 1922 developed a threefold division The Honey Pump formed the center of Courtesy The Otolith Group and Lux, of the social organism into cultural life, political life, and eco- the Free International University (F. I. U.), London 7 which was hosted by the Museum nomic life. For Steiner, the productive capital was the spirit—that Fridericianum in Kassel during the 100 days of , 1977 Otoliths are tiny calcium carbonate is to say, the individual abilities of humankind. Instead of “mechan- particles in the inner ear. They From: Werner Krüger, Joseph Beuys – ical machines,” he called for “moral machines.” Beuys’s Honey Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler (Everyone Is enable the perception of gravity and Pump at the Workplace was also such a machine. Steiner and an Artist), 1979/80, color, sound, 56 min., acceleration. In a video of the same excerpt: 45:48 – 48:33 name from 2003, The Otolith Group Beuys saw the bee colony as an exemplary community, equating © Werner Krüger; © Joseph Beuys Estate imagines a future in which the and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021; video its work processes with the metabolism of the human organism. on loan from Medienarchiv Joseph Beuys, human ear is no longer calibrated Rabindranath Tagore named material success as the purpose Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe to Earth’s gravity as a result (the Joseph Beuys Media Archive, Center of the machine, and goodness as the purpose of humankind. When for Art and Media Karlsruhe) of extended stays in outer space. Science fiction and the shaping the machine gains the upper hand, humans themselves become In 1977, the honey pump in the of the future in the face of ecologi- machines. The consequence is a politics without compassion and Fridericianum circulated roughly cal catastrophe in the Anthropo- responsibility. The Otolith Group strives to use Tagore’s ideas 300 kg of honey through a system cene, the history of global liberation to solve the problems of the present. It explores the history and of 173 meters of tubes and hoses. struggles, tricontinentalism (the These stretched from the first floor term replaces postcolonialism and consequences of global capitalism through the means of art. through the stairwell to under refers to Africa, Asia, and South the museum’s skylight dome. For America), the close interconnection this purpose, two electric motors between racism, capitalism, and made a 2.6 -meter-long copper shaft environmental degradation, and rotate in 100 kilograms of piled-up the development of global modern margarine. The honey pump formed arts are the fields of research of a closed circuit. Beuys described The Otolith Group artist collective. it as a “diagram of a human being” Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo with vessels, nerves, heart, spine, Eshun realize film essays, installa- and head. tions, and performative lectures; Beuys equated honey with they develop projects and programs, creative thought—the basis for the promote other artists and curate. social sculpture, to which every In their video O Horizon, they com- human being is called upon to con- bine visual art, dance, performance, tribute. The honey pump was a music, and recitation to contem- visually tangible sign for a second plate the reformist activities of the “honey pump,” which also had Indian writer, philosopher, painter, its place in the Fridericianum for and musician Rabindranath Tagore 100 days during the documenta (1861–1941) and their impacts in the constant presence of Beuys: from today’s perspective. The Free International University. Here, topics such as alternative energies or social problems and possibilities in a post-capitalist society based on freedom, equality, and fraternity were discussed with the public. It was a “workplace” because the capital of creativity was used to create, as Beuys put it, “knowledge goods” and “intellec­t- ual goods.” Exercise Introduction 18 Works / Positions 19 The challenges of climate change and the extinction of species can in the installation were formed with She still has her office at the only be met through the cooperation of all humans. Joseph Beuys clenched fists, a reminiscence of TRANSFORMING Sanitation Department. For nearly Robert Sobukwe, a South African FRESH KILLS three decades, she has been in- had already identified a crisis of the modern industrial society activist against apartheid and 1990 – 2021 volved in transforming the Fresh with “enormous processes of extermination.” He saw the reason for founder of the Pan Africanist Con- 18 ENGINEERING IMAGES OF FRESH Kills Landfill in the New York this in the economic understanding of capital. He completely gress liberation movement. He KILLS’ WEST MOUND–SECTION 1/9 borough of Staten Island—a social CLOSURE CONSTRUCTION redefined capital as the creative potential of human beings. Beuys was imprisoned on Robben Island 2016–2020 sculpture of 150 million tons 8 off the coast of Cape Town. When of trash and roughly nine square expanded the concept of sculpture and art. For him, everything new political prisoners arrived, Grid of 18 color photographs, each kilometers of land—into a park. 40.6 × 60.9cm was sculpture, and every single individual was an artist, whom he he would pick up a handful of soil, held responsible for actively helping to shape society and the future close his fist and greet the new Courtesy New York City Department of Sanitation and © Bernstein Associates of the planet. The action 7,000 Oaks – City Forestation Instead arrivals. In Bopape’s artistic cos- Photographers of City Administration was one example of this. mos, plants, minerals, charcoal, and ashes also hold cultural, Fresh Kills Park, Lifescape, Staten Island, Mierle Laderman Ukeles involves citizens who lived in New political, and economic meanings. New York, Draft Master Plan, March 2006, York at the time of the operation of the landfill Fresh Kills in its City of New York trans­formation into a positive social sculpture—a people’s park. Two pages from the Draft Master Plan, Dineo Seshee Bopape sees Africa’s history of suffering inscribed Vandana Shiva each 29.7 × 42 cm The Wisdom of the Art and Culture at Fresh Kills, including in African soil, which she juxtaposes with narratives of resistance Interconnected System five proposals for public artworks by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, page 26, and symbols of solidary action. Vandana Shiva advocates organic 2018 and axonometric aerial photograph of Fresh Kills and surrounding context, farming and “Earth citizenship”—to create a better world of coexist- Excerpt from the documentary part of page 8 film The Seeds of Vandana Shiva by ence and equality for all living beings. Camilla und Jim Becket, 2021 Courtesy the artist and New York City Video, color, sound, 1:33 min. Department of Sanitation Becket Films PROPOSAL FOR ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE IN A PUBLIC ARTWORK In 1991, the globally active physi- AT FRESH KILLS: PUBLIC OFFERINGS: cist, science theorist, social activist, MADE BY ALL, REDEEMED BY ALL and globalization critic Vandana A transgenerational project, 2000–ongoing Shiva founded the organization Photographs from the PowerPoint Navdanya (Nine Seeds) on her par- projection, 6:50 min. ents’ farm in Dehradun at the foot- Courtesy the artist Joseph Beuys dissolved as the tree population Dineo Seshee Bopape hills of the Himalayas. The organ- 7000 Eichen – in Kassel grew. Lerole: footnotes ization is dedicated to protecting “Forgiveness for the Land—Public Offer- Stadtverwaldung statt Anyone could participate in the (The struggle of memory the biological and cultural diversity ings: Made by All, Redeemed by All” Mierle Laderman Ukeles, artist’s text and Stadt­verwaltung project and, for 500 DM, have a tree against forgetting) of seeds, which she collects and photographs, from: Aleksandra Wagner (7,000 Oaks – City Forestation with a stela installed at the location 2018 sows herself. Shiva fights against with Carin Kuoni (eds.), Considering Instead of City Administration) of his or her choice. In addition genetic engineering and the patent- Forgiveness (New York: Vera List Center Installation, soil, ceramics (black for Art and Politics, The New School, 1982 – 1987 to the project coordination office of clumps, gray clumps), iron oxide, coal, ing of seeds by large corporations 2009), pp. 174–81 the Free International University record players, wooden panels, gold such as Monsanto, which thereby An Action begun at documenta 7, 1982 and leaf, sage, essential oils (incense, sage, concluded with the planting of the 7,000th initiated by Beuys, more than 4,000 absolute rose), dimensions variable, destroy the livelihood of local farm- With her work, Mierle Laderman oak tree by the artist’s son Wenzel Beuys individuals, groups, companies, installation: 87 × 480 × 455 cm ers and biodiversity. She is con- Ukeles explores the role of women, at documenta 8, 1987 and institutions participated. Never- Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler vinced that Western development the meaning of labor, and social 5 black-and-white photographs by Dieter theless, the artist himself had to Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg strategies are damaging Indian cohesion. After the birth of her first Schwerdtle (reproductions): Planting of the first of Joseph Beuys’s contribute a considerable amount agriculture because they are male- child, the US-American concep­­- 7000 Eichen (7,000 Oaks), documenta 7, to the financing of the campaign. In her multimedia installations, determined and lead to exploitation tual artist decided in 1969 in her 1982; Joseph Beuys, 7000 Eichen (7,000 Oaks), documenta 7, 1982; Poster After five years, just in time for Dineo Seshee Bopape combines and destruction. Manifesto for Maintenance Art for: Joseph Beuys, 7000 Eichen (7,000 documenta 8, all the trees had been videos, sounds, and photographs Shiva is an avowed ecofeminist. to henceforth declare her routine Oaks), documenta 7, 1982; Beuys in domestic chores to be performan­ front of the Holiday Inn in Kassel, docu- planted. with natural materials and found As opposed to the aggressive, ruth- menta 7, 1982; Planting of Joseph With 7,000 Oaks, Beuys imple- objects. Her starting points are less exercise of power by men, who, ces—that is to say, art. The dis­ Beuys’s 7000 Eichen (7,000 Oaks), in Ifta, mented his idea of a social sculp- events in African history and con- in her eyes, are concerned solely tinction between creative activity documenta 7, 1982 ture. Many worked together for flicts with the European colonizers, with success and money, the female and the care work of maintaining Photos: Dieter Schwerdtle, © documenta the benefit of the community. Past African American music and lit- “inner power” preserves, encour­ everyday life was thus abolished. archiv, Joseph Beuys/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 and future intertwine. The crys- erature, such as the songs of Nina ages, and empowers the other. Ukeles’s art is service to society. talline basalt stones have existed Simone and the lyrics of James “In nature’s economy the currency This includes the task of enabling For documenta 7, Beuys first had for millions of years, while the oaks Baldwin, or statements by anti- is not money, it is life,” Shiva argues. and encouraging people to actively 7,000 basalt stones laid out in front are living beings that can live for apartheid activists such as Winnie Everything is interconnected; in participate in an ecological and of the Fridericianum to form a over 800 years. Beuys strove to Madikizela-Mandela. the smallest seed, there is infinite economic transformation of society. wedge-shaped sculpture. At its tip, set a “symbolic beginning” for the For installations such as Lerole: diversity and energy. In 1977, Ukeles became the first he planted the first oak tree. Next “transformation of all of life, of footnotes (The struggle of memory and only “artist in residence” to each of the 7,000 trees that were society, and of the whole ecological against forgetting), Bopape uses at the Manhattan Department of planted in the course of the pro- system.” soil. “Lerole” means “living dust”: Sanitation. In her Touch Sanitation ject, one of the basalt stones was soil, clay, and sand are culturally project, she thanked each of the erected as a stela. The sculpture and politically charged with history 8,500 employees by shaking their on Friedrichsplatz thus gradually and memories. The lumps of clay hands “for keeping New York alive.” Exercise Introduction 20 Works / Positions 21 Joseph Beuys believed that animals were gifted with spiritual the world and nature. They are not Dusadee Huntrakul energies that were difficult for humans to access. He was convinced very open to new, genuine impres- Listening in on a conversation sions. Foster is convinced that between a woman and a wolf that animals had a greater understanding of art, freedom, and animals can show us how we could and their rivers equality. For Beuys, the hare, the coyote, the stag, bees, and other deal with the world. Empathizing 2019 with animals teaches respect for animals were conversation partners and role models. He interacted Ceramic, 17 × 29 × 15 cm; birch plywood with them, and he sought to transform himself into them. He was fellow creatures and for nature, of shelf, 45 × 100 × 45 cm 9 which humankind is a part. These convinced that a better human being could emerge from the con- Courtesy the artist and BANGKOK experiences enable Foster to CITYCITY GALLERY, © 2019 Dusadee nection with animals—a human being who would create a world in rediscover the “wild” and primal Huntrakul which all beings lived as equals. Donna Haraway also pleads for aspects of his own self, which a sense of responsibility between species. In doing so, she does not connects him to animals. Such Clay is a very special material. It is experiences also help him to empa- what the earliest surviving cultural stop at the spiritual connection between humans and animals. thize with other people, and to objects of humankind are made She outlines a utopia of beings that overcome all traditional divisions show them understanding and of. The oldest ceramic figure found of life in infinite diversity. Like Joseph Beuys and Donna Haraway, compassion. Animals can be our to date was created approximately Charles Foster is concerned with a mental exercise and the reassur- teachers to live better lives and 25,000 years ago. In many religions, become better people. it is believed that a creator god ance that, as living beings, we are not alone, but rather part of the formed humans and animals from cosmos. The Thai artist Dusadee Huntrakul draws the connecting clayey earth and breathed life into lines even further. He unites people, animals, rivers, mountains, Donna Haraway them. Clay is also a favorite mate- all nature across all times. With him, they find a common language, Donna Haraway: Storytelling rial of Dusadee Huntrakul. For him, for Earthly Survival it holds the past, the present, and the understanding of which is also a mental exercise. 2017 the future, the connection of which A film by Fabrizio Terranova is what interests the Thai artist. Video, color, sound, 90 min., In his ceramics, sculptures, and excerpt: 00:40:28 – 01:06:28 drawings, Huntrakul often refers Courtesy Icarus Films to archaeological finds and links the formal elements of ancient cul- “Make relatives not babies!” is tures with the visual language Donna Haraway’s challenge to hu- of modern and . manity. The US-American biologist, For Huntrakul, time is not linear, historian of science, and professor but rather cyclical. The present Joseph Beuys as well as Korean and Japanese Charles Foster emerita of feminist theories and moment is already past, and the Coyote III songs, and tinkered with his grand Wie ist das Leben als Tier? technoscience proposes a way out future will also be past. In Huntra- 1984 piano. Finally, Beuys wrote the Charles Foster im Gespräch of the Anthropocene, which, accord- kul’s view, there is no hierarchy A concert with on June 2, word ­“Coyote” on the blackboard (What Is Life Like as ing to her, is inevitably heading between humans, animals, and 1984 at 6:00 p. m. in Sôgetsu Hall, Tokyo on provided. After more than an hour, an Animal? Charles Foster toward an apocalypse. It is to nature. The ceramic and plywood the occasion of the exhibition Joseph in Conversation) sculpture Listening in on a conver- Beuys. An Exhibition Based on The Ulbricht the alarm clock set at the begin- be replaced by the “Chthulucene,” Collection in the Seibu Museum of Art ning rang, and the action was over. June 4, 2017 a term she derived from the Cthulu sation between a woman and a In 1979, Beuys had presented myth of intergalactic, immortal wolf and their rivers bears witness Video, digitized, color, sound, 61:20 min. Charles Foster in conversation with the exhibition Aus Berlin: Neues Barbara Bleisch in the television program beings conceived by the author H. P. to this. All living beings and nature © Joseph Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst vom Kojoten (From Berlin: News Sternstunde Philosophie, SRF Kultur Lovecraft. In the new age, humans are interwoven in the cycle of life Bonn 2021; video on loan from Medien­ archiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst of the Coyote) at the Ronald Video, color, sound, 54:25 min. are no longer at the center of and , as well as in the cycle of und Medien Karlsruhe (the Joseph Beuys Feldman Gallery in New York, thought and action. Media Archive, Center for Art and Media SRF Kultur times. Karlsruhe) with which he referred back to Today, the boundaries between the legendary coyote action I like Living as an animal of the forest human and animal, between the For the event, a double concert America and America likes Me. in order to learn more about himself physical and the non-physical, be- by Joseph Beuys with Nam June In Tokyo, this animal was the focus as a human being—this is what tween humans and machines are Paik was planned. However, Beuys for the third time. Here, it evolved the British biologist, veterinarian, already blurred. Here, Haraway sees surprised the audience by not into a human being. It was his and lawyer Charles Foster put to an opportunity to establish a new sitting down at his grand piano, intention that humankind should the test. He teaches at Oxford; his way of thinking. She uses the but rather emitting the sound reach a higher level of conscious- main areas of research are medical cyborgs of feminist science fiction “ö ö” and thus performing a kind ness through the coyote, which law and ethics. As a deer, Foster as a metaphor for a future world of chant. He varied the “ö ö” from is connected with the primordial, let himself be chased by blood- in which gender, skin color, and class soft, exhausted-sounding tones and thus come closer to a future hounds; as an otter, he dived in a no longer matter. The oppositions to howls and roars. In between, oneness with nature. stream and rummaged among the between mind and body, animal and he recited a speech exercise by stones for fish; as a city fox in human, male and female, organism 6 6 Marie Steiner and spoke the words The actress and anthroposophist Marie London, he ate out of garbage cans. and machine, public and private, “Bach Meat Fleisch / Mozart Meat Steiner was the wife of Rudolf Steiner. The How do you perceive the world nature and culture—all construc- text on which Beuys drew was taken from Fleisch / Beethoven Meat Fleisch / her “Language Course for the Participants when you live with your nose as tions of white male domination—are Schweinefleisch Schweinefleisch” of the Drama Course,” held in Dornach in close to the ground as the odor-­ overcome. All species, creatures, (Bach Meat Flesh / Mozart Meat 1924; cf. Schneede 1994 (see note 2), p. 369. sensitive badger? Foster wanted and beings treat each other Flesh / Beethoven Meat Flesh / to experience the world from responsibly. Pork Pork). Paik played pieces by a different perspective. Humans Schubert, Beethoven, and Chopin, usually have a fixed perception of Exercise Introduction 22 Works / Positions 23 Beuys was concerned with thinking. He considered the restriction Joseph Beuys Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian to rational intelligence and a one-sided mechanistic worldview to wie man dem toten Hasen I am (not) a monster die Bilder erklärt 2019 be dangerous. He had decided against the natural sciences in favor (How to explain pictures The film is part of an ongoing project of art because he saw in it the possibility of approaching the inner to a dead hare) that began in 2019. essence of the world. The animal is by its instinct much more closely 1965 Video, color, sound, 98 min. connected with this than the human being. By explaining some- An Action on the occasion of the opening 10 of the Beuys exhibition … irgendein Strang Courtesy the artist thing to a hare, Beuys wanted to promote the “sense of the mystery (any one strand) … on November 26, 1965 at 8:00 p. m. in the Galerie Schmela, of the world.” He warned that materialistic thinking leads to Düsseldorf Hans Ulrich Obrist once called totalitarianism, to cold death, as demonstrated by National Social- the artist and researcher Nelly 16mm film, digitized, black-and-white, ism and the other totalitarian systems. He countered this with no sound, 6:22 min. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian “a social sculptor.” Active at the interfaces the energy of sculpture, on which all creation is based. Nelly Ben- © Joseph Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2021; video on loan from the Medien- between theater, music, design, Hayoun Stépanian also explores the question of how we should archiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst politics, and science, Ben Hayoun-­ und Medien Karlsruhe (Joseph Beuys think. She searches for the origins of knowledge and thought. What Media Archive, Center for Art and Media Stépanian brings people together, does it mean to know something? What models of education are Karlsruhe) initiates debate, and promotes the free formation of opinion and there that can deprive right-wing demagogues such as Trump, Instead of the usual introductory the independence of thought. Le Pen, and Bolsonaro of their basis? Incidentally, in 1974, Beuys speech, the first solo exhibition She founded the University of had visited Hannah Arendt, as whom Ben-Hayoun Stépanian of Joseph Beuys with drawings and the Underground in the basements dressed up for her research, several times in New York after his objects from the years 1951 to of nightclubs in London and 1965 opened with this Action. Com- Amsterdam. first lecture at The New School for Social Research. pletely unexpected for the guests In her project I am (not) a at the opening, who could only follow monster, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian the approximately one-hour pres- investigated how knowledge is entation from outside through created and controlled. The starting the display window of the gallery. point was the legacy of Hannah Inside, Beuys was alone with the Arendt. The German American dead hare. He moved it around philosopher is one of the most the room so that it appeared to be important political theorists alive and showed it the pictures. of the twentieth century. Her book Beuys’s head was covered with Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report honey and gold leaf—materials on the Banality of Evil and her fraught with meaning. Among other analysis of totalitarian societies things, honey can stand for lively, prompted Ben Hayoun-Stépanian creative thought, gold for purity to research the topicality of her and spirituality, but both also thought. The artist interviewed, for birth, death, and resurrection. among others, students of Arendt, The mask indicated the trans­ philosophers, and members of formation Beuys strove to achieve Pussy Riot. At a time when fascist in thought and consciousness. tendencies are increasingly gaining In this, the animal can be a role influence and someone like Donald model. For Beuys, the hare—asso­ Trump can become president of ciated in many cultures with the United States, the power rela- rebirth and intuition—connected tions in the production of knowledge spirit and body, cosmos and the must be exposed. earth. It has access to the creative potential. Razor-sharp analysis alone cannot lead to understanding. Beuys wanted his works to stim- ulate thought processes and asso- ciations, to release hidden human experiences, and to expand con- sciousness through their radiance, which eludes purely rational access. Intuition and imagination are indispensable prerequisites for grasping the “complexity of the creative realms.” Exercise Introduction 24 Works / Positions 25 In the 1950s, Joseph Beuys began to become preoccupied with Joseph Beuys Greta Thunberg Siberian shamans. During this time, he suffered a severe depression I like America and America I Am Greta likes Me 2020 that lasted two years. Beuys found salvation in the spiritual ener- 1974 gies he discovered in the figure of the shaman. This meant a radical A film by Nathan Grossman An Action from May 23 to 25, 1974, each Video, color, sound, 88:25 min., change in his artistic work. In 1958, he developed the first ideas day from 10:00 a. m. to 6:00 p. m., at the excerpt: 1:18:00–1:23:52 René Block Gallery in New York of his social utopia in four sketchbooks titled Projekt Westmensch, © BR·F 11 Documentation by Helmut Wietz (camera), which he later translated as Energy Plan for the Western Man. René Block Gallery Ltd. New York in “How dare you! ” the sixteen-year- collaboration with Joseph Beuys (produc- In actions such as I like America and America likes Me, the artist tion), 16mm film, digitized, black-and- old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg then took on the role of a shaman, who is both a provocateur and white, sound, 37:28 min. thundered at the heads of state and a healer of society. Greta Thunberg also provokes through her direct Archiv Galerie Block Berlin, © Joseph government at the 2019 UN Climate Beuys Estate and VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2021; Change Conference in New York. and harsh approach, with which she never tires of touching on video on loan from Medienarchiv Joseph Beuys, Zentrum für Kunst und “You have stolen my dreams and sore points. The young climate activist has also experienced severe Medien Karlsruhe (the Joseph Beuys my childhood with your empty words.” Media Archive, Center for Art and Media depression and suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of Karlsruhe) She accuses politicians of failing autism. Her “initiation” was a documentary film about the islands to take serious action to save For this Action, Beuys had an the world’s climate, destroying live- of garbage floating on the oceans. It prompted her to break out ambulance take him from the air- lihoods for her generation. From of her isolation and fight—initially on her own—against the climate port to the gallery (and back again the lone activist who first demon- catastrophe. Like Joseph Beuys, Greta Thunberg has become a after the Action was finished). strated for full implementation symbolic figure, revered and reviled at the same time. For three days, he stayed with a of the Paris climate agreement on coyote in a room separated by a wire a Friday instead of going to school mesh fence. At times, loud turbine in the hot and dry summer of 2018, noises rang out from a tape re- Thunberg has become an icon of cording, which, for Beuys, was inde- the global climate change movement terminate energy, similar to un- FridaysForFuture. Since then, formed fat. schoolchildren and students have The coyote—an animal that was been demonstrating every Friday familiar to Native Americans and, for climate protection worthy of the for them, had divine qualities— name. stands for the original America, For her part, Greta Thunberg thus also for the original Western no longer flies; she eats vegan, human, who still lived in harmony and buys only the bare necessities. with nature. At the same time, For the World Climate Conference, it is a reminder of the extermination she traveled across the Atlantic and oppression of the indigenous in a sailboat. She has made her peoples of the United States. For vehement and public advocacy for I like America and America likes climate protection her main task. Me, Beuys explicitly slipped into There is no more time to lose. the role of the shaman, outwardly Humanity is in its greatest existen- characterized by the felt he wore tial crisis. Greta Thunberg is as a cloak, the walking stick as sacrificing her own youth to ensure a shepherd’s crook, and the patch that everyone finally understands of rabbit fur on his vest. Beuys this. saw the shaman as a mediator be- tween the material and the spiritual realms. The stacks of the current issues of The Wall Street Journal stand for capital, which dominates humankind and transforms thought into “rigor mortis.”5 By referring to the figure of the shaman, Beuys strove to show humankind a future path to freedom and harmony with nature.

5 Joseph Beuys in: Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys. Coyote, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1980), p. 14; quoted in Schneede 1994 (see note 2), p. 337 [translated]. Exercise Introduction 26 Works / Positions 27 “Revolution = Evolution” was Joseph Beuys’s formula for shaping a Joseph Beuys Huma Bhabha Tejal Shah better future society based on grassroots democracy and a redefini- DER CHEF THE CHIEF. Receiver Between the Waves Fluxus Gesang (DER CHEF 2019 2012 tion of capital and the state. For moral and social reasons, Beuys THE CHIEF. Fluxus Chant) Bronze, 250.8 × 45.7 × 63.5 cm; Video installation, main film, single-channel, saw “non-violent transformation” as the only possibility for change. 1964 edition: 4 + 2 AP color and black-and-white, 5.1 surround sound, 26:15 min., loop; edition: 3 + 2 AP He considered the art—or rather the creativity—of every human The Action was performed twice: on August Courtesy Salon 94, New York being to be the only evolutionary force to be used in joint processes 30, 1964 as part of the Maj-udstillingen Courtesy the artist and Barbara Gross 12 festival in the Billedhuggersalen, Charlotten- Huma Bhabha titled one of her sculp- Galerie, Munich of thought and action. Charles Darwin already recognized that borg, Copenhagen, and on December 1, 1964 at the Galerie René Block in Berlin tures We Come in Peace. This was nature does not favor the strongest, but rather those who work well also the title of her exhibition on Deviations make evolution possible. 2 photographs by Jürgen Müller-Schneck together and communicate with each other. For the action DER (reproductions) the roof terrace of The Metropolitan Tejal Shah sees deviations as part CHEF THE CHIEF, Beuys appeared as a being in a state of becom- Museum of Art in New York in of nature. In her view, they are Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München/ 2018. The recourse to a topos from “the source and core of all life.” ing which seeks an exchange with its environment. Tejal Shah STERN-Fotoarchiv/Jürgen Müller-­ Schneck, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 science fiction films is no coin- Shah is critical of dualistic classifi- explores a togetherness in which humans are only one of countless cidence. The Pakistani American cations such as that of man and forms of nature. With her film Between the Waves, she thus tells With this Action, Beuys laid out sculptor’s often larger-than-life woman, humankind and nature. an evolutionary story in which mixed beings drift through the world the fundamentals of his understand­- figures are human-alien hybrids. The background of her work are ing of sculpture. He had previ- For Bhabha, in the current situation, queer and feminist life plans, as together, touching and loving each other. Huma Bhabha creates ously prepared the space in Copen- science fiction is the hope and well as spiritual traditions of Bud- figurines that draw from archaeological, film and art historical, and hagen with, among other things, future of humanity. Her disturbing dhism. With her works, the Indian literary works, as well as from science fiction: With these, she in- a line of fat and a fat corner. In and at the same time vulnerable artist addresses questions of gender, vents a speculative future for humankind. addition, there were the most impor- creations seem as if their process sexuality, ecology, and science. tant props of the action itself: a of creation has not yet been com- Her artistic forms of expression roll of felt, two copper staffs wrapped pleted. The artist creates them from include video, photography, perfor- in felt, and two dead hares. For completely different, often very mance, sound, installation, and Beuys, fat was the sculptural mate- simple materials: In addition to drawing. In the video installation rial par excellence. From a chaotic clay, styrofoam, and wood, she also Between the Waves, these media state, it can be transformed into uses everyday objects, bricks, and are linked together. The main film a firmly defined form in the move- other building materials, as well with the same title is accompanied ment from the heat pole to the cold as found objects. Bhabha has some here by four other different film pole, and then transformed back sculptures cast in bronze and then loops. It is a fable that connects the again. Beuys saw it as a storehouse paints them. During the casting past, the present, and the future. of spiritual energy. Likewise felt, process, all the visual characteristics Shot in India, the scenes take which he also used as a separating of the surfaces are reproduced place in desolate landscapes, under insulator. Copper conducts heat— to the finest detail, so that the eye water, in the archaeological site a process of movement that Beuys is initially deceived as to the true of Dholavira, and in an Indian me- saw as fundamental to the creation material composition of the bronze. tropolis. Here, Shah creates a of a sculpture. This can be readily observed world between utopia and dystopia, He also saw the artist’s think- in her sculpture Receiver, a hybrid in which the boundaries between ing and speech as elementary sculp- of woman, machine, and alien, man and woman, between humans, tural processes of creation. The characteristic of Huma Bhabha’s animals, and plants, and between sounds he emitted in the action are work. culture and nature are suspended. “carrier material.” They point at the same time to the animal, which can help humans to a new con- sciousness in unity with nature— embodied by the hares. Every human being is free to activate his or her creative potentials for this goal. Self-determination is implied in the title THE CHIEF. From the felt mantle, in which Beuys rested for six to eight hours as in a shroud, something new would arise—a “colorful,” “light,” “super- natural spiritual world.” 7

7 Joseph Beuys, in: Schneede 1994 (see note 2), p. 72 [translated]. Colophon 28

This short guide is published in conjunction with the exhibition

Everyone Is an Artist Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys

27.3. – 15.8.2021

K20 Grabbeplatz Grabbeplatz 5 40213 Düsseldorf

Curators Isabelle Malz, Catherine Nichols (guest curator), Eugen Blume (guest curator)

Curatorial Assistant Florentine Muhry

Editor Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Texts Angela Wenzel

Translations Gérard Goodrow

Graphic Design Pascal Storz and Fabian Bremer

Overall Production Druckerei Kettler, Bönen

Cover Image Joseph Beuys, Aktion I like America and America likes Me, René Block Gallery, New York, Mai 1974, Photo: © Caroline Tisdall, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021

© 2021 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

For information on the accompanying program, please visit An exhibition in conjunction with www.kunstsammlung.de +49 (0) 211 83 81 204

Supported by

Media partner Everyone Is an Artist “I am not an artist at all. Or rather only under the con­ dition that we all see ourselves as artists, then I’m back in.

Otherwise, no.” Joseph Beuys, 1985