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Joseph Beuys

German

1921, Krefeld, Germany
1986, Düsseldorf, Germany

Audio Stories

The artist describes how actions become art

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NARRATOR:  

No matter where you begin with Joseph Beuys, you never quite get the whole picture. For him, everything was material for making art. Chocolate, animal fat, felt, butter, thoughts, conversations, interactions. Even this, what you are doing right now, listening to me.  

 

SFX: Music filters in. Edgy, slightly atonal.  

 

His installations and performances – what he called “actions”- were full of rituals, and sometimes lasted for hours. He gave lectures, which he also considered performances. As part of those lectures, he would write on a chalkboard – making marks which, he argued, could be considered drawings. The action of lecturing transformed the classroom itself into a sculpture. A social sculpture. And according to Beuys, all of that artmaking could transform the world, by transforming the people who engaged with it. Here he is, explaining.  

 

BEUYS:  

One of the most important statements of the enlarged understanding of art is, that already the thought is a sculptural process. The thinking process is a sculptural process. 

 

NARRATOR:  

So walking around here, just by looking and thinking, you’re actively participating in Beuys’ work. And if you talk about it —  

 

BEUYS:  

The expression of this thinking forms in language is also art. Your tongue, your larynx, your windpipe, your lungs, the air, the sound waves, the ear of the other person.  

 

NARRATOR:  

…then you have, in a sense, become a sculpture, too. 

 

SFX: The music flourishes and fades 

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