2008 Woodie Awards
Beuys: 'Everyone is an Artist'
Amie Johnson
Issue date: 10/20/04 Section: Entertainment
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"Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments," organized by the Menil Collection, Houston in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, is the first Beuys exhibition in the United States in 25 years.
Opened on Oct. 8 and running through Jan. 2, 2005, the exhibition recognizes Beuys contribution to both contemporary sculpture and the phenomenon of installation and performance art while reasserting the influential artist's pioneering career.
An exacting radical in both art and politics, Beuys was born in West Germany in 1926. Showing an early interest in the natural world and science, he pursued a career as a pediatrician before joining the Luftwaffe to avoid the draft.
By the end of the war, Beuys had been wounded multiple times and held by the British as a prisoner-of-war.
One extraordinary tale of his distressing wartime experience continuously wove itself into the experimental nature of his work and his own public persona - his plane crashed in the Crimea where a group of native Tartars rescued him, and to heal his wounds and keep him from freezing to death, they rubbed him with animal fat and covered his body in felt.
These very materials would become a centerpiece for his performances, which he called "actions" and represented to the artist comfort, warmth and consolation.
Among his better known works are "Felt Suit" (1970), which is exhibited on a coat hangar, and his performance piece "Coyote, 'I Love America and America Loves Me,'" during which Beuys covered himself in felt and stayed in a room with a live coyote for three days.
Employing a shamanistic approach to art and to life, animal fat, bees, honey and hares were frequent motifs in what can be described as an unusual, lyrical and completely controversial career.
Shown on Oct. 16 in conjunction with the exhibition, "Joseph Beuys: Everyone is an Artist" documents the emotional response of his peers towards his art. The documentary highlights a prime example of Beuys approach to sculpture, which he did not see as a rigid art form, but as a fluid process.
Outraged spectators rushed the stage during a performance involving melting pieces of fat, one punching the artist in the nose. Blood covering his face, Beuys saluted the audience with a crucifix.