Beuys 2021 – Programme [subject of change] Aachen Beuys, Fluxus and the Impact The Festival of New Art in Aachen Symposium Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst und Lehrstuhl für Kunstgeschichte der RWTH Aachen 22 to 23 Octoner 2021— [curated by Myriam Kroll and Annette Lagler] The name Joseph Beuys is indelibly associated with an incident at the Festival of New Art on 20 July 1964 in the main lecture hall – the Audimax – of the RWTH technical university in Aachen. A performance by Beuys took a dramatic turn when an agitated student landed a punch on his nose, drawing blood, and the event was abruptly called to a halt. Photographs taken that evening have become part of our collective memory, even if few people nowadays are fully aware of the circumstances. The symposium to be held in Aachen during »beuys 2021« will focus on the relationship between Joseph Beuys and the Fluxus movement in the wake of that festival in Aachen. Participants will critically examine that situation over fifty years ago in light of its importance to art, politics and society today, with particular reference to works by contemporary artists. Presented in cooperation with the Chair of Art History, this two-day symposium will welcome numerous expert speakers to the Audimax (the original festival venue) and to the Ludwig Forum Aachen. Bedburg-Hau Joseph Beuys and the Shamans Exhibition Museum Schloss Moyland 2 May to 29 August 2021 — [curated by Barbara Strieder and Ulrike Bohnet] In his early works Joseph Beuys repeatedly focused on shamans and on the contexts in which they operate. In a number of Actions he either assumed the role of the shaman or drew on shamanic practices. For Beuys, Eurasia was a spiritual space that stood for the reconciliation of opposites such as reason and intuition. This ethnological exhibition highlights fundamental aspects of historical and contemporary indigenous shamanism and of the shamanic worlds that Beuys so often referred to. It will also include work by contemporary artists such as Marcus Coates, Lili Fischer, Anatol Donkan and Igor Sacharow-Ross, demonstrating the relevance of the topic of shamanism to the current artistic discourse with its particular interest in social issues and ecology. Bergisch Gladbach Empty Boxes as a Plastic Theme in the Work of Joseph Beuys Exhibition Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders 7 May to 8 August 2021 — [curated by Hartmut Kraft] Many art collections have a small open box made from pinewood; it is marked inside, in Beuys’s own hand, with the word »Intuition« above two horizontal lines. It is signed and dated on the back. Around 12,000 examples of this seemingly unremarkable object were produced. In fact Beuys made each one of these multiples himself: ». I have to make these things myself, otherwise they’re nothing« (Joseph Beuys 1992). For both Beuys and his publisher Wolfgang Feelisch, founder of the VICE-Versand distribution company, the Intuition box ultimately came out in the largest edition of anything either of them produced. This exhibition provides an insight into the genesis of these multiples and their variants, a for example by artists such as Mauricio Kagel and Alfonso Hüppi. There will also be a focus on the »empty box« as a recurrent topic in the work of Joseph Beuys, from the »Rubberized Box« (1957) to the »Sulphur-Covered Zinc Box (Plugged Corner)« (1970) and the series of prints »Wandering Box« (1980). Beuys himself felt there was a connection between the empty box and the existential crisis he suffered in the mid-1950s. Bonn Beuys — Lehmbruck Thinking is Sculpture Bundeskunsthalle Exhibition in cooperation with the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg 25 June to 1 November 2021 — [curated by Johanna Adam] In 1986, just a few days before his death, Beuys was awarded the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize. In his acceptance speech, he stressed the importance the art of the Expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck had for him. Marking the 100th birthday of Joseph Beuys, the exhibition »Beuys – Lehmbruck. Thinking is Sculpture« explores this connection and presents the work of these two artists. There are not many artists who caused as radical an upheaval in the history of art as Joseph Beuys. This exhibition brings together a series of key works by Beuys and presents them alongside some of Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s most important sculptures. The focus of the exhibition, however, is not on stylistic or formal similarities, instead, it seeks to shed light on a single pivotal question: What is the revolutionary potential of art in the context of its time? Ticket to the Future Joseph Beuys, Katinka Bock, Christian Jankowski, Jon Rafman Exhibition Kunstmuseum Bonn 7 October 2021 to 9 January 2022 — [curated by Stefanie Kreuzer and Christoph Schreier] Beuys was a magnificent draughtsman and sculptor and an artist whose ultimate aim was to shape society as a whole. His Multiples, which were intended to bring homeopathic doses of his thinking into every household, served him to this end. Between 1965 and 1986 he created 556 Multiples, of which more than 400 are part of the collection of Kunstmuseum Bonn. Ranging from bags of dried hare’s blood to political manifestos, these works reflect his thinking and his art. The Multiples lead to the centre of his oeuvre as a whole. The social, ecological and existential questions, raised in Beuys’s works underpin the great topicality of his art. His works are signposts for a society in need of reform, which requires lateral thinkers like Beuys. There is growing interest in his art, especially among the younger generation 1 of artists and researchers: Beuys is contemporary! The exhibition draws on the Kunstmuseum’s Multiples and presents them alongside current artistic positions. Thus, the historical view of Beuys’work is also a preview of what is to come. Dortmund revolution beuys MO-Schaufenster#27 Exhibition Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U 13 Aug to 17 Oct 2021— [curated by Sarah Hübscher and Elvira Neuendank] Dealing with history is about the both the present and the future. Form-finding in various media, artistic representation, and the daily staging of empowerment as a global cultural technique all directly connect with questions posed in Beuys’s work. The motor of »insight« and »reason« instigate moments of self-empowerment that Beuys expresses in his art and in his words: »Make use of the power that you have through your right to self-determination! All of you!« (Joseph Beuys, 1970) This collaborative exhibition project, presented in the Schaufenster exhibition space in Museum Ostwall, assembles objects and issues in a setting that combines political action and reaction. It addresses historic, current, and future processes of social interaction, forms of activism, and assumptions about the human condition. This project involving Museum Ostwall and TU Dortmund (IAEB) codes the exhibition space as a social laboratory and as a place of »permanent conference«, thereby enabling visitors to engage in a critical discussion ranging from the objects and concepts on display to themes appropriated by Beuys. Technoshamanism Exhibition Hartware MedienKunstVerein 9 October 2021 to 6 March 2022 — [curated by Inke Arns] With the figure of the shaman that Joseph Beuys cultivated throughout his career as its starting point, this exhibition focuses on »techno-shamanistic« artistic positions today. The artists in question not only regard shamanism as a technology in its own right, they also use other (speculative) technologies to seek out shamanic energies. Many of the tropes that Beuys so iconically employed to heal and transform society, to cultivate a spiritual connection with the environment, to overcome the power and the logic of capital are now deployed by contemporary artists, who thus update his strategies and questions for the digital age. Duisburg Lehmbruck — Beuys Everything is Sculpture Exhibition in cooperation with the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn Lehmbruck Museum 26 June to 17 October 2021 — [curated by Söke Dinkla and Jessica Keilholz-Busch] Is Joseph Beuys an artist? Or is he a shaman, a reformer and political activist who has changed not only art, but society as a whole? The sight of a sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck became a pivotal experience for the young Beuys. Both Lehmbruck and Beuys were convinced that art has the power not only to explain the world, but also to change it for the better. In keeping with Beuys’s own maxim that »everything is sculpture«, this exhibition explores the special relationship between two of the most important German artists of the twentieth century. »Sculpture is the essence of things, the essence of nature, of that which is eternally human« – Beuys took this insight of Lehmbruck’s as the starting point for his Social Sculpture, which subsequently revolutionised the art of the twentieth century. Ever since then, sculptural forming – making art – has not primarily referred to the shaping of materials but to the shaping of ideas, the shaping of the social fabric as a whole. The Duisburg exhibition examines the progress of this future-oriented idea from its inception to the present day. 2 Düsseldorf Everyone is an Artist Cosmopolitan Exercises with Joseph Beuys Exhibition K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen 27 March to 15 August 2021 — [curated by Eugen Blume, Isabelle Malz and Catherine Nichols] The exhibition provides profound insight into the cosmopolitical thinking of Joseph Beuys as manifested in his Actions. For here – as an acting, speaking, and moving figure – Beuys examined the central and radical idea of his expanded concept of art: »Everyone is an Artist«. The goal of his universalist approach was to renew society from the ground up. In the exhibition, contemporary artists, along with representatives from the most diverse areas of society, enter into a multi-layered, transcultural dialogue with Beuys. From today’s perspective, they confirm, question, and expand his theses on the possibilities of a future conceived in terms of art.