Beuys

[hatzel]

A quick search of the forum tells me that I am the only person ever to have mentioned his name, so...please tell me somebody else friggin' loves Beuys...?

As a Londoner I feel it's apt to pick something local to illustrate this thread:

http://monicaogrodowski.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/beuys1.jpg

[hatzel]

...so only me, then? :crying: You people = a great big joke :lol:

If that's how it's going to be then I guess we'll just have to turn this into a thread in which I have a conversation with myself. I can handle that, don't you worry. So yeah, I agree with the OP, Beuys is pretty cool. He's one of those people who really inspires me, and almost makes me want to petition for this whole site to be turned upside down, for the 'cultural' section of subforums to be put right at the top, above all this boring and frankly irrelevant talk of what this or that American politician I've never heard of had to say and how cool or uncool Stalin was. Not because I consider 'art' inherently more more significant than 'politics' (though nor am I implying that I don't), but in order to remind us of the r-evolutionary potential of culture, of which art is just a manifestation, so that we might not just dismiss those artistic movements coming out of the radical traditions of Dada, the Situationists and Fluxus (to name but a few) as just something for 'artists' to mess around with out in their little bubbles somewhere, detached from any meaningful 'real life' struggle. I think Beuys was instrumental in redefining 'art' and highlighting its potential, the role it may play in the fight for social change. I don't think any 'revolutionary' worth their salt can disregard art as a powerful tool.

[Veovis]

My first impression:

It looks like a bunch of people pooped near a bear trap and then hung a Spanish ham over it. :confused:

[blake 3:17]

I really like some of Beuys' work. I mostly admire the sketches and doodle/scrawls that were notes for either larger or extended works and performances.

I haven't had time to go into it further, but apparently his whole story about being rescued by tribal peoples and being warmed in wax and fur was a total lie.

The little biography I was looking at said he became a Professor or Chair of a Department of Monumental Sculpture. By temperament I am opposed to The Monumental and deeply infatuated with miniatures, detritus and bits of weird stuff here and there.

Do you know Kiki Smith or Tom Dean's sculptures?