Joseph Beuys (German: Joseph Beuys, May 12, 1921, Krefeld, Germany - January 23, 1986, Düsseldorf, Germany) is a German artist, one of the main theorists of postmodernism.
Biography of Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was born in Krefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia) on May 12, 1921 in the family of a merchant. He spent his childhood in Kleve near the Dutch border.
During World War II he served in aviation. The beginning of his “personal mythology,” where fact is inseparable from symbol, was the winter of 1943, when his plane was shot down over the Crimea. The frosty “Tatar steppe”, as well as melted fat and felt, with the help of which local residents saved him, preserving his bodily warmth, predetermined the figurative structure of his future works.
Returning to duty, he also fought in Holland. In 1945 he was captured by the British.
In 1947-1951 he studied at the Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf, where his main mentor was the sculptor E. Mathare.
The artist, who received the title of professor at the Dusseldorf Academy in 1961, was fired in 1972 after he, along with rejected applicants, “occupied” its secretariat as a sign of protest.
In 1978, a federal court declared the dismissal illegal, but Boyce no longer accepted the professorship, striving to be as independent as possible from the state.
Coyote: I love America and America loves me 
Actresses 
Chair with fat
In the wake of the left opposition, he published a manifesto on “social sculpture” (1978), expressing in it the anarcho-utopian principle of “direct democracy”, designed to replace existing bureaucratic mechanisms with the sum of free creative expressions of individual citizens and groups.
In 1983 he ran for election to the Bundestag (on the Green list), but was defeated.
Beuys died in Düsseldorf on January 23, 1986. After the death of the master, every museum contemporary art sought to install one of his art objects in the most visible place in the form of an honorary memorial.
The largest and at the same time the most characteristic of these memorials is the Work Block in the Hessian Museum in Darmstadt - a suite of rooms reproducing the atmosphere of Beuys's workshop, full of symbolic preparations - from rolls of pressed felt to petrified sausages.
Beuys's work
His work of the late 1940s and 1950s is dominated by “primitive” in style, similar to rock paintings, watercolor and lead pin drawings depicting hares, moose, sheep and other animals.
He was engaged in sculpture in the spirit of expressionism of V. Lehmbruck and Mathare, and carried out private orders for tombstones. Experienced the deep influence of R. Steiner's anthroposophy.
In the first half of the 1960s, he became one of the founders of “fluxus” or “fluxus,” a specific type of performance art, most widespread in Germany.
A bright speaker and teacher, in his artistic actions he always addressed the audience with imperative propaganda energy, consolidating his iconic image during this period (felt hat, raincoat, fishing vest).
For art objects he used shocking unusual materials such as rendered lard, felt, felt and honey; the archetypal, cross-cutting motif was the “fat corner”, both in monumental and more intimate variations (Chair with fat, 1964, Hesse Museum, Darmstadt) variations. A sense of dead-end alienation was acutely evident in these works. modern man from nature and attempts to enter into it on a magically “shamanic” level.
Among Beuys's famous performances: “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare” (1965; with the carcass of a hare, which the master “addressed” by covering his head with honey and gold foil).
"Coyote: I Love America and America Loves Me" (1974; when Boyce shared a room with a live coyote for three days).
“Honey extractor at the workplace” (1977; with a machine that drove honey through plastic hoses).
“7000 Oaks” is the most large-scale action during the international art exhibition “Documenta” in Kassel (1982): a huge pile of basalt blocks here was gradually dismantled as trees were planted.
After Joseph Beuys was healed Crimean Tatars he realized that human life is main value our world. Boyce experienced the healing power of felt, which saved his life. He was forever fascinated by this wonderful material given to us by nature.
The entire work of Joseph Beuys was devoted to the idea of preserving Life. And one of the main materials he used was felt. He made sculptures out of it: he wrapped a piano, chairs, and armchairs in felt.
Beuys's famous creation is the “felt suit”, which symbolizes warmth and protection from outside world like a cocoon.
Beuys was one of the first to place sets of objects in display cases, transferring non-art objects into a distinctly museum context.
In his numerous actions, he not only wrapped objects in felt, but also wrapped himself in it and covered himself with lard. Felt in this context acted as a heat keeper, and felt sculpture was understood by him as a kind of power plant that produces energy.
Joseph Beuys broke the old foundations in art and opened the way to a new vision of the world. He became the founder of postmodernism.
Thus, the result of the crossing of the fate of felt, amazing person and history of the 20th century, appeared new stage in relation to humanity to felt. Thanks to the work of Joseph Beuys, interest in this material has greatly increased and has not subsided to this day.
During his life, Joseph Beuys carried out 70 actions, organized 130 of his personal exhibitions, created more than 10,000 drawings, large number installations, graphic series, not to mention countless discussions, symposiums, lectures, which also took the form of actions.
Bibliography
- Bychkov V. Aesthetics. - M.: Gardariki, 2004. - 556 p. - ISBN 5-8297-0116-2, ISBN 8-8297-0116-2 (erroneous).
- Herold J. 03/16/1944. One day in the life of Joseph B. / J. Herold; auto-st. V. Gurkovich and P. M. Pixhouse; ph. J. Liebchen. - [Simferopol]: Crimea. rep. local historian museum, .
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“When people ask me if I am an artist, I answer: stop this nonsense! I'm not an artist. More precisely, I am an artist to the same extent that every person is an artist, no more and no less!” Joseph Beuys
Yes... earlier, I remember, Beuys (1921-1986) was so loved in that part of the domestic art scene that proudly carried the banner of contemporary art somewhere. All the time, our current artists were in internal dialogue with him*. It got to the point that he was practically on par with God - phrases like “Boyce with you”, “Boyce - Boysovo”, “Rely on Boyce, but don’t make a mistake yourself”, “Be afraid of Boyce” were quite widely circulated. Now, of course, it’s not the same, passions for Beuys have subsided, other heroes have appeared.
And at first everything is fine life path Beuys’s situation was such that he should not have been loved in Russia. Even such non-standard citizens as current artists. At first, Beuys joined the Hitler Youth. And in 1940 he volunteered for the front, first as a gunner-radio operator, and then as a bomber pilot. And what’s most disgusting is that he bombed Russia. He fought well, for which he received, among other things, the Iron Crosses of the 1st and 2nd classes - these were serious awards. But in March 1943, retribution overtook him, and his Junkers 87 was shot down over the frozen Crimean steppes - in winter in the steppe Crimea, strange as it may sound, it is cold.
Wounded, unconscious and half-frozen, Boyce was picked up by the Tatars and nursed for 8 days using traditional Tatar medicine. Boyce was coated with animal fat, wrapped in felt and placed somewhere. Boyce lay there and fed on the primitive life energy contained in the fat, and preserved it thanks to the felt. All this time he lay in delirium, but, as it later turned out, he did not waste time, but was spiritually reborn towards esotericism, pacifism and humanism**. In the end, his own people found him, i.e. fascist German invaders and occupiers, and took him to the hospital***. From this moment on, a completely different Boyce begins.
It must be said that Beuys had a penchant for all kinds of esotericism even before the war - he was very keen on the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner. In short, having quickly fought to the complete and final victory of the enemy, Beuys received an artistic education and began to reproduce all the esotericism he had absorbed in the form of expressionistic sculpture and these types of rock paintings:
Olenikha
But all this was more or less traditional, and for a true avant-garde artist there is no greater horror than traditionalism. Therefore, after thinking hard, Beuys began to use materials that no one had used before - fat and felt. Subsequently, honey and animal carcasses were added to them.
Fatty stool
And here, not only one of the main rules of avant-gardeism worked - if no one has done it, then I should do it. As a result of the Crimean history, fat and felt turned out to be for Beuys sources and reservoirs of mysterious natural energies, almost xtonic otherworldly forces that save and preserve life. Fat, in addition, symbolized positive natural chaos - it changes its shape under the influence of temperature, i.e. adapts to new conditions, but does not change its nature and most important properties. Working with these materials, Beuys pointed out to lost humanity its alienation from nature, from nature, from the origins of life and from the cosmos in its anthroposophical understanding. So Beuys became a shaman. But we haven’t had shamans in contemporary art yet.
Campaign “How to explain pictures to a dead hare”
This is one of Beuys's most famous shamanic actions. Having smeared his head with honey and covered it with gold powder, Boyce performed shamanism for three hours - using muttering, mimance and gestures, he communicated with a dead hare, explaining his work to him. The field for interpreting this action and searching for its meaning is very large. In any case, this is a very elegant combination of the world of contemporary art and the shamanic practice of communicating with other world. And the reconciliation of them, so different. Boyce himself, as befits a decent shaman, served as an intermediary between these worlds.
In general, the overwhelming majority of Beuys’s works assume great freedom in their interpretation and twisting of meanings. Actually, like the events of our lives, if we perceive them as certain signs. Perhaps it is precisely this semantic ambiguity and a certain interpretative darkness that underlies Russian love for Beuys - we also do not like extreme clarity and the absence of even a little mystery. Not the French, tea, with their sharp Gallic meaning and with “I think, therefore I am.”
Campaign “I love America, America loves me”
Another famous Boyce action. She walked like this. Boyce was wrapped in his favorite felt, taken by ambulance to the airport, put on a plane to America, taken out of the plane there, taken again by ambulance to the gallery and turned around. Waiting for him in the gallery was a wild, freshly captured coyote, with whom Boyce lived side by side for three days. After this, Boyce was returned in the same way, in felt, to his homeland. Thus, Boyce excluded all of its civilization from his communication with America - even when he was transported by car, he was protected by reliable, proven felt. Boyce communicated only with the totemic Indian animal, symbolizing the very fusion with nature and its original sources, to which he called humanity. As you can see, the communication was quite warm and friendly - in three days Boyes managed to tame a coyote. The action served as a source of inspiration for Oleg Kulik, who created two acts based on it - “I love Europe, Europe doesn’t love me” and “I bite America, and America bites me.”
But if Boyce had only been a shaman, it is unlikely that he would have become so loved in the country with which he had to fight. He also became a transformer of the world, and transforming the world is our favorite national pastime. In general, Beuys comes up with the concept of social sculpture. The gist of it is this. Just as Beuys himself makes objects (sculptures) from fat and felt,
Fat
Felt suit
those. from living, warm, natural materials that store natural energy, and from modern human society, living and natural, but wild, it is possible to create, with reasonable influence on it, a new, better society on anarchic grounds. Reasonable influence is humanism and enlightenment. As a result, a society with direct democracy should have emerged, and the state as an instrument of suppression and control should have disappeared. “The state is a monster that must be fought. I consider it my mission to destroy this monster,” Boyce said. And this is a former Hitler Youth and Wehrmacht member. After all, some people are growing in a good direction. Beuys thus became a socio-political activist, combining shamanism and politics.
Before Beuys, there were already artists who were involved in politics, for example, surrealists and dadaists. But there politics was a continuation of their artistic practices and had a correspondingly violent character - surreal, etc. Many artists were involved in politics in parallel with art, without combining them in any way. Beuys went the other way and made normal, familiar political activity part of his art. This has never happened before either.
Probably the most famous project Beuys at the intersection of politics and shamanism - this one:
Promotion “7000 oaks”
Here it must be added that Beuys was not only an anarchist, but also a “green”. So, 7,000 basalt blocks were piled up in front of the exhibition complex in Kassel. It was assumed that people would plant oak trees in different places around the world. After planting one tree, one block was removed from the square (they then began to dig them in next to the planted tree, although this was not planned by Beuys). Everything is simple, effective and clear.
Homogeneous infiltration for piano or thalidomide child - the greatest modern composer
Here's the story. In the 50-60s. Thalidomide-based sedatives were sold in Europe. When pregnant women took them, they often gave birth to children with pathologies. In total, 8-12 thousand of these children were born. The scandal was terrible and long. Most often, children were born with hand pathologies. Here, in my opinion, everything is clear - the piano, like in a cocoon, stores all its capabilities and beauties in a felt case, since there is no need to discover them - the child will still not be able to play his melody on it.
In addition to holding events and creating objects, Beuys showed himself in another genre, which can roughly be called performative lectures, discussions or seminars. He spoke to various audiences promoting his views on the world, society and art. These were the type of conversations between a spiritual leader and his flock; they lasted a long time, were sometimes very crowded - several hundred people - and were full of radical statements, Beuys’s eccentric behavior, and powerful suggestions.
However, Beuys’s activities very often were not so straightforwardly positive. Sometimes she was quite paradoxical and provocative. In Chicago, for example, he held a performance dedicated to John Dillinger, the 1930s gangster declared public enemy No. 1. Boyce jumped out of the car near the very cinema where Dillinger was shot by FBI agents, ran several tens of meters, as if knocking down the gunman’s aim, fell into the snow and lay there as if killed. “The artist and the criminal are fellow travelers, for both have a wild, uncontrollable creativity. Both are immoral and driven only by the impulse of desire for freedom,” this is his explanation of the meaning of the performance.
In the future, Beuys predicted - shamans and fortune tellers too - will all be artists. An artist, in his understanding, is not an occupation or a level of skill, talent or fame. This is just a certain attitude towards life. An artist is just a person who changes the world.
Late 20th century
Otherwise, the world will be in such a mess.
* One fairly young artist somewhere in the mid-90s said that Beuys stole one idea from him. And he was very proud of it. It was meant that this artist, having given birth to this idea, after some time learned that Beuys had already realized it. It's a shame, of course, but also nice.
**More on the question of our love for Beuys. In the mid-90s, artists Kirill Preobrazhensky and Alexey Belyaev implemented a project dedicated to this story in Munich. It was the “Boyce Plane” - an approximate model of a certain aircraft, built from several hundred felt boots. It is interesting that Preobrazhensky-Belyaev chose a moment associated not only with Beuys gaining new spiritual experience, but also with his overthrow as an enemy. And we love a defeated enemy.
*** There are enough facts that cast doubt on this whole story. Those. the downed pilot Boyce was there, but there was neither his terrible half-dead state, nor his many days of lying in fat and felt. But Beuys had something in the sense of some kind of mystical experience in Crimea - it was not an easy place. And, being prone to creating personal mythology, he may have framed the acquisition of this experience in such a story. In the end, it doesn’t matter to us whether it was or wasn’t. What matters to us is what Beuys had in his head. In general, let it be - it was, it was more beautiful.
Joseph Beuys (German: Joseph Beuys, May 12, 1921, Krefeld, Germany - January 23, 1986, Düsseldorf, Germany) is a German artist, one of the main theorists of postmodernism.
Joseph Beuys was born on May 12, 1921 in Krefeld, the son of merchant Joseph Jakob Beuys (1888-1958) and Johanna Maria Margaret Beuys (1889-1974). In the autumn of that year, the family moved to Kleve, an industrial city in the Lower Rhine (Germany), near the Dutch border. There Josef attended a Catholic primary school and then a gymnasium. The teachers immediately noticed the boy's talent for drawing. In addition, he took piano and cello lessons. Several times he visited the studio of the Flemish painter and sculptor Achilles Murtgat.
Still during schooling Beuys studied a lot of fiction: treatises by the founder of anthroposophy, Steiner, works by Schiller, Goethe, Schopenhauer and Novalis, works on medicine, art, biology and zoology. According to Beuys, on May 19, 1933 (i.e., at the time when the Nazi Party began organizing mass events to burn objectionable literature), in the courtyard of his school, he rescued the book “System of Nature” by Carl Linnaeus “... from this big, flaming heaps."
In 1936 Beuys became a member of the Hitler Youth. More and more children and teenagers joined the party as membership became mandatory. He took part in a rally in Nuremberg in September 1936, when he was only 15 years old.
In 1939, he worked in a circus and took care of animals for a year. He graduated from school in the spring of 1941. The war has already engulfed the whole world.
In 1941, Beuys volunteered for the Luftwaffe. He began his military service as a radio operator in Poznań under the command of Heinz Seilmann. They both attended lectures on biology and zoology at the local university. At the same time, Beuys began to seriously consider a career as an artist.
In 1942, Beuys was stationed in Crimea. Since 1943, he became the rear gunner of a Ju 87 bomber. In the drawings and sketches of this time, which have survived to this day, his characteristic style. The beginning of his “personal mythology,” where fact is inseparable from fiction, was the date of March 16, 1944, when his plane was shot down over the Crimea near the village of Freifeld, Telman district.
This event became the starting point in the artist’s career: “The last thing I remember was that it was too late to jump, too late to open the parachute. It was probably a second before hitting the ground. Luckily, I wasn't wearing a seat belt. - I always preferred freedom from seat belts... My friend was wearing a seat belt, and he was torn to pieces upon impact - there was almost nothing left that looked like him. The plane crashed into the ground, and this saved me, although I received injuries to the bones of my face and skull... Then the tail turned over and I was completely buried in the snow. The Tatars found me a day later. I remember voices, they said “Water,” felt from the tents, and the strong smell of melted fat and milk. They covered my body with fat to help it regain heat and wrapped me in felt to keep me warm."
At the same time, eyewitnesses claim that the pilot died shortly after the accident, but Boyce was conscious and was found by the search team. There were no Tatars in the village at that time. Although this does not contradict the words of Beuys, who always said that his biography was the subject of his own interpretation. But the main thing is that this story is the myth of the origin of Beuys's artistic personality and provides the key to interpreting his use of unconventional materials, among which felt and tallow occupy a central place. Boyce was taken to a military hospital, where he remained for three weeks from March 17 to April 7.
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The exhibition “Joseph Beuys: A Call for an Alternative” has opened at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. As part of the Year of Germany in Russia, they brought to Moscow, among other things, the most famous works Joseph Beuys, one of the most famous German artists of the 20th century.
By the way, he himself hated being called an “artist,” and it’s easy to understand why: such a definition would not only significantly narrow the scope of Beuys’s activity, but would also deprive his work of versatility and depth. He was a sculptor, a musician, a philosopher, and a politician.
Felt and more
In almost every hall, a visitor to the exhibition can see exhibits made of felt. The “crown” of felt art is a gray suit hanging separately from its felt “brothers”. The audience whispers, guessing what the author wanted to say with this creation.
Reason for loving this material is simple: it was he, according to the legend spread by the artist himself, who saved the life of him, a former Luftwaffe pilot, in one of the cold war winters. When Beuys's plane was shot down over the Crimea in 1943, he was saved from death by Tatars who allegedly warmed him young man lamb fat and felt.
The largest, and in the truest sense of the word, exhibits of the exhibition were the famous “Tram Stop” and “The End of the 20th Century”. The latter can be described as follows: huge pieces of basalt symbolize environmental disaster, self-destruction of humanity and dangerous inaction. Historical pessimism should, according to Beuys, teach contemporaries and descendants not only to interact with the world around them without destroying themselves, but also to heal humanity, making it not a victim of progress, but a creator.
" I love America and America loves me"
No less interesting are the video installations exhibited in Moscow. We can say that each of them reveals the artist’s work to the viewer from a new side. The interactive halls of the exhibition are dedicated to Beuys’s favorite country - the USA. The country, which absorbed much of what the artist disliked, was embodied in his work in the image of a coyote. Boyce, having “befriended” a coyote named Little John, made the wild animal part of the famous New York performance “I Love America and She Loves Me,” where the coyote tears up rags in Boise. Art theorists saw symbolism not only in the choice of animal, but also in the figure of the author: Beuys became the personification of the Old World, and the coyote - the New.
Context
The “noisiest” hall of the Moscow exposition is called “Coyote III”: video from musical accompaniment takes us to Japan, where in 1984 Joseph Beuys was invited to an exhibition. At the same time, Nam June Paik, a famous American-Korean artist and pioneer of video art, was there. By chance, an unusual duet was formed, the result of which was the performance “Coyote III”. Boyce made sounds reminiscent of the roar of a coyote, and Pike accompanied him on the piano: he played variations on the theme " Moonlight Sonata", then he simply banged the lid.
Boyce in Moscow
“Call for an Alternative” is not the first exhibition of Beuys’s works in Moscow. In 1992, residents and guests of the Russian capital were already lucky enough to enjoy his work, but there was no such excitement as this time. First significant difference the current exhibition from the previous show - the number of exhibits. Last time in Moscow they showed only Beuys’s graphics, essentially abandoning the political component of his work.
The Call for an Alternative focuses specifically on politics. Maria, a student at one of the Moscow universities, shares her impressions of the exhibition: “When I saw such a name, I couldn’t help but come here. In connection with all the events that happened in Russia over the past last year, this exhibition came in very handy. But, unlike most actions of pseudo-modern art, I saw in Beuys’s works an unobtrusive, dressed in art forms opinion, from politics to religion."
May 12th – birthday German artist Joseph Beuys. He was born in 1921 and died in 1986. Despite the fact that almost thirty years have passed since his death, he still does not leave us indifferent. The reason for this is the provocation he created.
Joseph Beuys was born into the family of merchant Joseph Jacob Beuys. The future artist attended a Catholic school, then a gymnasium. He drew well since childhood and loved to read fiction. But he decided to become an artist after the Second World War, in which he took part: he volunteered to go to the front, began military service as a radio operator, but soon became a bomber gunner. In 1944, Beuys' fighter plane crashed over a Crimean village. And this became a kind of epiphany for the artist: “The last thing I remember was that it was too late to jump, too late to open the parachute. It was probably a second before hitting the ground. Luckily, I wasn't wearing a seat belt. I've always preferred freedom from seat belts... My friend was wearing a seat belt and was torn apart on impact - there was almost nothing left that resembled him. The plane crashed into the ground, and this saved me, although I received injuries to the bones of my face and skull... Then the tail turned over and I was completely buried in the snow. The Tatars found me a day later. I remember voices, they said “Water”, felt from the tents, and the strong smell of rendered fat and milk. They covered my body with fat to help it regain heat and wrapped me in felt to keep me warm."
This story can be called a legend - according to eyewitnesses, things were somewhat different: the pilot did not die immediately, but Joseph was conscious and was discovered by search engines. Moreover, there were no Tatars in the village at that time. One way or another, we have no reason to accuse Beuys of lying: he always said that his biography is the subject of his interpretation. But it is precisely this semi-mythical story that is the key to unraveling the artist Joseph Beuys. There, in the Crimean steppe, where Beuys’s plane was shot down, the artist’s works originate. Boyce is a shaman. He, of course, did not run around the fire with a ritual tambourine, but “shamanic” motifs dominate in his art. Primitive drawings, installations with dead animals, sculptures made of fat and felt - all this is the work of Beuys and an echo of the “Crimean legend”. The artist, by the way, himself called his works “shamanism.” Beuys's works are a protest to his contemporary world.
Siberian Symphony
The artist first presented the installation in 1963 at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts. Boyce plays a prepared piano. Dead hare with a cut out heart pinned to school blackboard. Triangles of fat and felt are also pinned to the blackboard. There are inscriptions in German on the board.
How to explain paintings to a dead hare
In November 1965, Beuys staged a three-hour performance at the Schmel Gallery in Düsseldorf: the artist’s head was covered with honey and gold foil, and he held the carcass of a hare in his arms. Boyce moves around the gallery and explains his work to the hare, “talking” to him.
Sled
Sleigh, felt blanket, piece of fat, lantern. Boyce presented such an installation in 1969 at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Here with the naked eye you can see the story of the artist’s rescue from the cold and snowy Crimean steppe. The installation consisted of fifty sleds - Beuys believed that everyone should have a chance to escape.
Felt suit
Just a suit. No buttons. Joseph Beuys initially declared war on pragmatism. He said that main task felt - heat preservation (again an echo of the Crimean steppe). But here what was important for Beuys was spiritual warmth, protection from the cold of modernity. In costume, he participated in the political performance “Dead Mouse Action/Separate Part” in Düsseldorf in 1970. The performance was a protest against the Vietnam War.
Deer in a flash of lightning
This work by Joseph Beuys appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main in 1958. A six-meter bronze figure, expanding downward, is a lightning bolt. The aluminum fragments scattered below are deer. There is also a goat, some ancestral animals and even a peninsula on the northern coast of America. The author wanted to show the evolution of the world and the relationship between nature and culture.
I love America, America loves me
Coyote is a symbol of primitive America. And Boyce wanted to meet her, avoiding civilized America. In 1974, Beuys made his acquaintance at the New York gallery of Rene Block. While still on the plane, he was wrapped in felt, he was carried on a stretcher into an ambulance and taken to the gallery, where a special “pen” with a coyote was equipped. There he spent three days communicating with the animal. Boyce provokes the coyote, who attacks and tears the felt. He tried to create a feeling of unity with the beast. Finally, the artist hugged the coyote, lay down on the stretcher and rode off in the same ambulance to the airport, without ever setting foot on the soil of “civilized” America.
7000 oaks
In 1982, for the Documenta 7 exhibition in the German city of Kassel, Joseph Beuys created a mountain of 7 thousand basalt slabs. It was possible to remove it, according to the author’s idea, in only one way - to plant the same number of oak trees across Europe, from Germany to Russia, accompanying each tree with a slab. The artist wanted to stop by every city along the way and convince local residents plant an oak tree yourself. Beuys himself did not have time to finish the project, but five years later, in time for the Documenta 8 exhibition, the project was completed.
Text: Anna Simonaeva