Joseph Beuys

JOSEPH BEUYS (Germany, 1921 - 1986).
"Meerengel Robbe I". "Suite Zirkulationszeit". 1982
Etching, P.A.
Hand signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 8 x 14 cm (print); 37 x 28 cm (paper).
Joseph Beuys Multidisciplinary conceptual artist today considered one of the most influential artists of 20th century Europe, his biography begins during World War II. Although his veracity has often been doubted, Beuys claimed that he fought as a pilot in the war, crashing in the Crimea. Near freezing to death, he was rescued by some natives, who wrapped him in grease and felt to prevent his death. In any case, both elements will constantly appear in his work. Between 1946 and 1951 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, where he later became a professor of sculpture and was subsequently expelled. His work produced during these years addresses the relationship between pedagogy and the study of art, as Beuys completely changed the approach to teaching that had been taken up to that time. In 1962 he began his activities with the neo-Dada Fluxus movement, of which he became the most significant member. His greatest achievement was the socialization he managed to make of art, bringing it closer to all kinds of audiences. His actions or "happenings" had less to do with the neo-Dadaist fuss to shock the bourgeois, but hid a deeper meaning. Throughout his career the artist repeats many objects, which he uses in various works. They are objects that differ from the Duchampian "ready mades" not because of their poor and ephemeral nature, but because they are part of the life of Beuys himself, who uses them after having lived with them and having left his mark on them. Many are related to his biography, such as the honey or the fat used by the Tartars who saved him during the war. In 1979 the Guggenheim Museum in New York exhibited a major retrospective of his work, consolidating his reputation as one of the most important artists of his time. Beuys used art, a dynamic, fluid and corrosive art to the point of becoming arti-art, to educate, heal and redeem the human being and society, spiritually sick and lost in the chaos of the world. Beuys is currently represented at the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, the Hamburger Banhof in Berlin, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Guggeheim in Bilbao and the Tate Gallery in London, among many other contemporary art museums around the world.