Joseph Beuys & Rudolf Steiner: Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition
by Allison Holland
from National Gallery of Victoria
A provocative look at two 20th century figures -- at philosopher Rudolf Steiner and artist Joseph Beuys - and their use of blackboard and chalk drawings to show the relationship between art and life and to present their visions of a better world. The colo
Joseph Beuys: The Reader
from The MIT Press
Twentieth-century artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)--legendary and self-mythologizing, enigmatic and controversial--remains an important influence on artists today. Beuys embraced radically democratic artistic and political ideas, proclaiming "Everyone is an artist," and advocating direct democracy through referenda. He famously worked with such nontraditional materials as felt, fat, and plants and animals both alive and dead. Beuys and his work--performance art, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation--received perhaps the most contentious reception of any postwar artist. This reader brings together the crucial writings on Beuys and his work, presenting key essays by prominent artists and critics from North America and Europe. With a foreword by Arthur C. Danto, "Style and Salvation in the Art of Beuys," Benjamin H. D. Buchloh's now classic 1980 essay, "Beuys, Twilight of the Idol," and influential texts by Vera Frenkel, Thierry de Duve, Rosalind Krauss, Peter Bürger, Irit Rogoff, and others, Joseph Beuys: The Reader is the most significant gathering of critical texts on this challenging artist that has ever been assembled. It will be essential reading for any student of Beuys and for all those interested in postwar art, the cult of the artist, and art's engagement with politics and society.
Contributors:
Joseph Beuys, Eugen Blume, Benjamin Buchloh, Peter Bürger, Jean-François Chevrier, Catherine David, Thierry de Duve, Vera Frenkel, Stefan Germer, Rosalind Krauss, Barbara Lange, Dirk Luckow, Claudia Mesch, Viola Michely, Irit Rogoff, Gregory Ulmer, Theodora Vischer, Antje von Graevenitz, and Dorothea Zwirner
Joseph Beuys: The Multiples
by Peter Nisbet
from Edition Schellmann
Out of print since 1999, the classic catalogue raisonna of Joseph Beuys's multiples is available again at last. Beuys, the most influential German--and perhaps the most influential European--artist of the postwar period, was born in 1921. He had planned to be a doctor, but following World War II he enrolled in the Dsseldorf Academy of Art. As a professor there in the early 1960s he encountered the influence of Fluxus and began to make and show the multiples--prints and boxes and other objects in editions--that became such a key part of his work. Those highlighted here include sleds, pieces of felt, signed head shots of the artist and texts calligraphed onto bank notes in francs, marks and schillings. Bruno Cora Tea mocks both mass production and boutique cachet by refilling a Coca-Cola bottle with tea, resealing it with flourishes worthy of a Belgian beer, and putting the whole thing in a glass-fronted box. Joseph Beuys: Multiples includes some 600 pieces, annotated lists of the major collections where they can be found, essays from significant curators and scholars and an interview with the artist.
Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man
by Joseph Beuys
from Perseus Books
Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man By Joseph Beuys. Edited by Carin Kuoni. "A tasty collection of hitherto uncollected/unpublished writings by and about the legendary German artist." -FlashArt illustrated ISBN: 1-56858-007-X
The Essential Joseph Beuys
by Alain Borer
from The MIT Press
Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), who reached cult status in his native Germany, was perhaps the most important artist to emerge in Europe after WW II; he was certainly the most influential thinker and teacher among artists of the postwar generation. His doctrine was that "every man is an artist," and his more radical aims included a restructuring of the economy and free access to all educational institutions. Beuys considered art a medium for social and political change, and the prosaic materials he employed--felt, animal fat, and wax were among his favorites--had a spiritual dimension and could be invested by the artist with healing power. His iconic "felt suit," for instance, expresses the idea of physical warmth. Arranged chronologically and spanning four decades, this is the only book that provides a definitive survey of this innovative artist's work in every medium--from drawings, sculptures, and printed works to objects, environments, and actions.
Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) was one of the most original and influential artists of the twentieth century. Challenging the traditional confines of art, he embraced a broader, philosophically and politically based practice formulated in the dictum "Everyone is an artist." His unique approach to the creative process transformed materials such as felt, fat, honey, blood, wax, copper, and sulfur into fluent and expressive artistic media. Called the most olfactory artist in history, he preferred the smells of the pungent and decaying, just as he favored the indecent, ugly, and disfigured over the polished, shiny, tasteful products of city slickers and social seekers. His long-term radical aims included the introduction of direct democracy through referendum, free access to all educational institutions, and a restructuring of the economy based on ecological necessity.
The Essential Joseph Beuys was inspired by the idea of an imaginary Beuys exhibition unhampered by the problems connected with actual exhibitions, e.g., those of geography, insurance, fragility, and the concerns of lenders. The book provides a definitive survey of the artist's work in every medium in which he worked--drawings and watercolors, sculptures and objects, environments and actions, and multiples and printed works. Arranged chronologically and covering the four decades he was active (1945-1985), the book reflects the changes in Beuys's choice of register, from the soliloquy of his early days to the dialogue of his period as a teacher to the powerful language of his public lectures to international audiences.
In his introductory essay, "A Lament for Joseph Beuys," Alain Borer summarizes the artist's oeuvre, drawing out themes of great complexity and relating them to Beuys' artistic and social milieus.
Matthew Barney & Joseph Beuys: All in the Present Must Be Transformed
by Nancy Spector
from Guggenheim Museum
All in the Present Must Be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys examines key affinities between these two seminal twentieth-century artists, who, though separated by generation and geography, share many aesthetic and conceptual concerns. Published in conjunction with the exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, it focuses on the two artists' metaphoric use of materials, their interest in metamorphosis, their employment of narrative structures and the relationship between action and documentation in their work. The exhibition, whose content is drawn largely from the Guggenheim's substantial permanent collection, pairs a selection of drawings and vitrines by both artists, as well as Barney's multipart sculpture, "Chrysler Imperial" (2002) from Cremaster 3, with Beuys' installation "Terremoto" (1981). The book examines the performative side of both artists' practices, as evidenced by the way each has theatricalized his own sculptural production. In addition, it documents both artists' one-person exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and includes an extensive selection of drawings and key comparative works.
Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments
by Mark Rosenthal
from Other Distribution
This beautifully illustrated book investigates Beuys’s sculpture, arguably the most fundamental portion of his artistic work, as well as his extraordinary influence. Featured objects include a stunning selection of Beuys’s remarkable vitrines—sly cousins of standard museum presentations, featuring both hand-made and found objects serving as “exhibitions” on Beuys’s own topics; blackboards on which he recorded his lectures and performances; room-sized environments; and many other sculptural projects that frequently served as physical documentation for Beuys’s performances.
With a comprehensive chronology of Beuys’s activities as an artist and activist, this book is essential for those interested in the life, work, and legacy of one of the art world’s most intriguing figures.
Joseph Beuys and the Celtic World: Scotland, Ireland and England 1970-85 (Art Catalogue)
by Sean Rainbird
from Tate
This is the first publication to explore the extensive activities of German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) in Britain and Ireland. Sean Rainbird returns to primary sources and retraces Beuys's footsteps, examining the rich body of exhibitions, lectures, and actions that grew out of the strong friendships and creative relationships that encouraged the artist to return so often to the British Isles.
Beuys's interest in Celtic myths and artifacts is fully explored, as well as his creative engagement with the linguistic legacy of James Joyce, his concern for Ireland, one of Europe's most troubled conflicts, and his attempt to set up in Dublin his Free International University for Disciplinary Research as a vehicle for social change and creative exploration. This book provides a new perspective on one of the 20th century's most challenging artists. AUTHOR BIO: Sean Rainbird is a Tate curator with a special interest in modern and contemporary art from Germany. He is the author of Beckmann.
Joseph Beuys: Mapping The Legacy
by Gene Ray
from D.A.P./Ringling Museum
A distinguished group of critics, art historians and artists gathered at the Ringling Museum to take part in an international symposium on the legacy of Joseph Beuys. The papers presented here examine the artist's various productive modes by means of different critical tools and criteria. The result is a much needed reader that will help both students and art professionals come to terms with this controversial and eno
What Is Art?: Conversation with Joseph Beuys
by Joseph Beuys
from Clairview Books
Joseph Beuys's work continues to influence and inspire artists and thinkers around the world--in areas from organizational learning, direct democracy, and new forms of money, to new methods of art education and the practice of "ecological art."
Volker Harlan--a close colleague of Beuys--whose own work also explores substance and sacrament--talked with Beuys about the deeper motivations and insights behind "social sculpture" and his expanded view of art. These profound reflections, complemented by Harlan's thoughtful essays, give a sense of the interconnected nature of all life forms and provide the basis for a path toward a future that is ecologically sustainable.
What is Art? features more than forty illustrations.
"I know that from him [Rudolf Steiner] a mission was given to me to gradually remove people's alienation and mistrust toward the supersensible through my means. In political thinking--the field I have to be working on daily--it is a matter of realizing the Threefold Social Order as quickly as possible." --Joseph Beuys, in a letter to Manfred Schradi, October 21, 1971
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