Joseph Beuys, who is recognized as one of the most influential artists of the postwar period, had a grand and ambitious goal for his work: the transformation of Western culture into a more peaceful, democratic, and creative milieu. His multifaceted career, which included sculpture, performance, lectures, activism, and even a campaign for elected office, were all part of an “expanded concept of art” that was aimed at advancing his utopian vision. In all its forms, his work is dense and highly allusive and draws on much of the accumulated knowledge of Western civilization, including history, religion, natural sciences, economic theory, and myth. A charismatic teacher, Beuys was mentor to a generation of younger artists who were inspired by his passionate fusion of art, life, and activism.
Service in World War II
Beuys was born in Krefeld, Germany, and as a youth pursued dual interests in art and the natural sciences. In 1940, at age 19, he joined the German air force. During his 5 years of service, he was wounded several times and interned in a British prisoner-of-war camp. He returned home in 1945 physically and emotionally depleted, and spent nearly a decade recuperating on a friend’s farm, where he made hundreds of drawings and small sculptures. Coming to terms with his involvement in World War II would be a lifelong process that informed much of his art.
Teaching at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Sled
After the war, Beuys decided to dedicate himself to art. In 1961, he was appointed to a professorship at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and soon became the school’s most sought-after teacher. At the same time, he began to develop his sculptural practice. One of his best-known works from this period is Sled (1969), which he called a “survival kit”: an elemental means of transport carrying a felt blanket, a lump of fat, and a flashlight. Sled alludes to Beuys’s oft-repeated story of crashing his warplane during a blizzard and being rescued by Tatar nomads, who treated his wounds with fat and wrapped him in felt to keep him warm. Whether true or not, the story is a powerful metaphor for the rebirth of both an individual and a nation after the horrors perpetrated by National Socialism.
I Like America and America Likes Me
Beuys was also a performer who was renowned for his “actions”—heavily symbolic events that illustrated his evolving ideas about how art could play a wider role in transforming society. The best known of these is I Like America and America Likes Me (1974), in which he spent several days with a coyote in a New York gallery space. Described as a “dialogue” with the animal, the performance presented Beuys as a shaman—a spiritual leader and healer who has a special affinity with animals—who traveled to the United States to enact a symbolic reconciliation between modern American society, the natural world, and Native American culture. To emphasize the urgent need for healing these rifts, Beuys had himself transported to and from the gallery in an ambulance.
“Everyone is an artist,” Political Activism, 7000 Oaks
During the 1970s, Beuys focused much of his energy on political activism, helping to found such groups as the German Student Party, the Free International University, and the Green party, whose goals included worldwide disarmament, educational reform, and environmental stewardship. His well-known slogan, “Everyone is an artist,” was meant to suggest that social transformation could be achieved if every human being applied his or her creative energies toward positive change in cooperative activities he called “social sculptures.” His most famous of these was 7000 Oaks (1982), a massive reforestation project in which seven thousand trees were planted throughout Germany, particularly in areas destroyed by bombing during World War II. In 1997, in homage to his idea, the Walker Art Center oversaw the planting of more than 1,000 young trees in Cass Lake, St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Recognition and Legacy
Beuys’s work has been collected and shown widely in Europe and the United States, with major retrospectives mounted by the Guggenheim Museum (1979) and Tate Modern (2005), among others. Large collections of his multiples are held by several American institutions, including the Walker Art Center and the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles. In 1986, Beuys was awarded the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize by the city of Duisburg, Germany.
While the success of Beuys’s ambitious program has been the subject of much debate, his enormous influence on the development of postwar art is undeniable. His exploration of sculptural form and materials, his mesmerizing performances, and his ideas about the powerful potential of consciously applied creativity are still catalytic forces in the art world.
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