Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was born in 1921 in Krefeld and died in 1986 in Düsseldorf. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Beuys is one of the fathers of contemporary performance and sculpture, pioneering the use of perishable non-traditional materials. During the time of World War II, he served in the Luftwaffe on the Crimean Front. In 1944, his plane was shot down and Beuys was rescued by the Tatars inhabiting Crimea at that time, who covered his body with felt and animal fat, later incorporated into his installations.
After the war, Beuys devoted himself exclusively to fine art, beginning his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf (1946-53) under Joseph Enseling, then continuing the education under Ewald Mataré. The year of his graduation, his first individual exhibition was displayed at the Haus der Brüder van der Grinten in Kranenberg. Within the decade of 50s, Beuys lived and worked in Düsseldorf, and in 1961, was appointed professor and chair for Monumental Sculpture at his alma mater. To give a quick overview on his most significant actions, one can highlight “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare” at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf (1965), a performance in which Beuys, alone in the gallery, spoke about art to the dead animal in his arms. The piece, pivotal to the later developments, was reenacted by Marina Abramović in her “Seven Easy Pieces” (2005) at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In the action “Polentransport” (1981), Beuys gave a wooden box filled with dozens of his works and their documentation to the Museum in Łódź, one of the first modern art museums in Europe.

The list of important exhibitions in which he partook can be started with the Documenta in Kassel (1964, 1972), “When Attitudes Become Form” (1969) at the Kunsthalle Bern, and Documenta in 1982, where he contributed with “7000 Oaks” (or “City Forestation Instead of City Administration”), an example of so-called social sculpture – by the time of the next Documenta (1987), posthumously Beuys’ aim to plant a thousands trees in Kassel has been achieved. Today, his work is included in permanent displays of the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Tate Modern in London, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and Museum of Modern Art in New York.