Page 111 - ARTE!Brasileiros #55

In Beuys’ case, his uniform was always that of arts, in classical forms as the most appropriate the social field, but also a revolutionary of plastic
a simple type: the felt hat, the fisherman’s jacket, to Aryan society that was intended to erect forms, so his discourse and artistic practice
the jeans and the heavy shoes, as someone itself as sovereign. cannot be separated: “Art is a type of science
ready to work in one of the oldest professions. Degenerate Art, the exhibition that began at of freedom” (harlan, p. 10), says Beuys, in a
The construction of his public figure, a kind of Munich’s Haus der Kunst in 1937, and then moved conception very close to that advocated by
fisherman of souls, still relates directly to the to 11 more cities in Germany and Austria, brought Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa , for whom
legend that the artist built around his biography. together 650 works by 112 artists, including Paul “art is the experimental exercise of freedom, its
As Borer says, in the quoted publication: Klee, Kurt Schwitters, Marc Chagall, Mondrian idea best known and prowed”.
and Lasar Segall. In four months in Munich, the Beuys used various means as instruments for
A legend is neither true nor false, it is, in show gathered more than two million visitors. disseminating his ideas. He was the author of a
Latin, what must be read and said, what is Almost twenty years later, in 1955, Arnold monumental production, dozens of works, but
narrated about the work and its author, “the Bode created in Kassel an exhibition, especially multiples, which by their democratic
point at which the biography ceases to be Documenta, whose central objective was character, another of the flags of the 1960s
extrinsic”: all that with which the legendary to reintroduce to the German public the and 1970s, were more suited to his proposals.
figure contributes and collaborates to the modernists censored in the Nazi regime. Between 1965 and 1986, he produced no fewer
extent that the artist himself watches This exhibition, which would happen every than 557 multiples, some with a circulation
zealously , and this in every work, what five years, and today functions as the great of 12,000 copies, such as the wooden box
will be said about it. (BORER, p. 12) beacon of contemporary art, was one of the written “Intuition!”. He also produced about
great platforms used by Beuys for his ideas. 300 posters, still appropriating propaganda
It is thus, therefore, that we should read He participated in four of his editions - in 1964, as one of his means of expression, the same as
the mythological story of Beuys and his plane 1972, 1977 and 1982 - contributing to the the Nazi regime did, but obviously with totally
crash in Crimea: as a preamble to his work. It is reconstruction of German artistic thought different goals.
narrated, in his biography published by Heiner decisively. And what was that way? In Beuys When Beuys created the poster The revolution
Stachelhaus, as follows: there is an essential question: “What is the are we, in Naples, in 1971, he explained, in an
need that justifies the creation of something interview with Giancarlo Politi, of Flash Art
At a young age, he began the study of like art?”. And your own answer is pretty clear: magazine (n. 168), the meaning of the use of
medicine, intending to devote himself to this medium:
the humblest. This desire, however, was If this issue does not become the central
destroyed when flying his Stuka, after focus of research and this is not solved in To communicate, man uses language, uses
joining the Luftwaffe [the Nazi air force] a truly radical way, which in fact sees art as gestures, writing, spray a wall, picks up the
in 1941. In 1944, at the age of 22, he the starting point for producing something, typewriter and extracts letters from it. In
miraculously escaped death in Asia. His in any field of work, then any thought of short, it uses means. What means to use for
plane, a JU 87, crashed in a snow-covered further developments is just a waste of political action? I chose art. Making art is
region called Crime or Crimea. Joseph time. (HARLAN, p. 10) therefore a means of working for man in the
was unconscious for several days, semi- field of thought. This is the most important
frozen, was taken by genuine Tatars, who When Beuys argues that art is the starting point side of my job. The rest, objects, drawings,
took care of his wounds. The people, born for producing something in any field, he is in performances, come second. Deep down, I
in the place, soon took him for one of his tune with those who, in the 1960s and 1970s, saw don’t have much to do with art. Art interests
own: “You don’t German, you Tatar,” and in art the only possible space for new practices me only while giving me the possibility to
brought him back to life, wrapping him in that would discondition the human being from dialogue with man.
his traditional felt blankets and heating him at least two then hegemonic visions, faces of
with animal fat. After his return, having the same civilizing process, as described by Here, then, we see a little of the meaning of
found shelter on a farm, Joseph faced Norbert Elias : the rationalist thinking and his postcard, which gives title to this speech,
a deep crisis, familiar to all great artists, the conditioning of the body through forms With this I abandon art. The art, for him, was
which allowed him to elaborate the basic of behavior then seen as civilized, but which not reduced to conventional spaces, the gallery
principles of his art. (BORER, p. 13) opposes it to the forces of nature, as if man and the museum, even though he also regularly
were excluded from them. occupied these places.
We must not forget that Beuys assumes there One of the central points of Beuys’ thought is
that he participated in the Nazi squadron and his precisely the “defense of nature”, as he preaches 2. the plaCes oF beuYs
martyrdom thus becomes a kind of redemption, in a work, a photograph from 1984, in a holistic 2.1 The academy
as if he were transformed so vitally with this conception, which is largely related to Rudolf To defend his proposals, Beuys used and
episode that he had a genesis from the help Steiner’s anthroposophy (1861-1925), that is, the problematized several fields: the academy, art
of the Tatars, with his fraternal and primordial need for integration between man and nature. institutions such as museums and galleries,
means of rescue. It is from there that, explains the artist, his work political institutions, and became one of the
It is from this story that Beuys justifies not must be understood. founders of the German Green Party in 1980.
only the character of his artistic propositions His presence at the Düsseldorf Academy of
as a field that must save the human being from My objects are to be seen as stimuli for Art, for example, was remarkable. There he
his crises, giving them a therapeutic character; the transformation of the idea of sculpture, studied, became professor of sculpture in
but it also explains the materials involved in his or art in general. They should provoke 1961, and remained for ten years until 1972.
works, especially felt and animal fat, elements thoughts about what sculpture can be For him:
that represent a form of protection, through and how the concept of sculpture can be
heat, as organic materials that enable a vital extended to invisible materials used around Being a teacher is my most important
relationship to nature, remembering how the the world: work of art [...] the rest is disposable
human being is an integral part of it. product. If you want to express yourself,
Ways of thinking - how do we shape our you need to present something tangible.
Art should not be limited to the retina – so I thoughts or But after a while, this has only the function
am engaged with substance, as “a process Ways of speaking - how we give shape to of a historical document. Objects are no
of the spirit (soul)” (HARLAN, p. 14) our thoughts or longer important. I want to get to the origin
of things, to the thought behind them.
It is how Beuys justifies the use of natural SOCIAL SCULPTURE: how we shape and give (Artforum, 1969)
elements in his work. In the 1981 version of shape to the world in which we live:
Chair with Fat (the first was performed in 1964) Sculpture as an evolutionary process; In this sense, Borer states that in Beuys, “speech
or in Felt Suit, 1970, we see how the artist is Everyone artist (HARLAN, p. 9) is sculpture”, as if his thought materialized in
not concerned with creating a sculpture in a the dialogical relationship with the students.
traditional way, but in provoking a reflection on In this way, we come here at the heart of Beuys’ His classes were very disputed and this
the role of the artist, building a narrative from conception of art: to use art as a platform for the facet is the motto for the exposition Beuys
these materials. Thus, Beuys is concerned with transformation of society as a stimulus for the and well beyond – Teach as art, organized by
reorienting the meaning and function of art. reconstruction of the world. As Harlan states Deutsche Bank from its own collection, on
During Nazism, modern art was officially in another publication: display at the Tomie Ohtake Institute [in 2011],
fought through the Degenerate Art exhibition, The main concern of his artistic work is the which also features works by students such as
a kind of manifesto against modernist reformulation of the social field. He calls the Blink Palermo, Katharina Sieverding and Lothar
movements such as the Bauhaus, Cubism social body social sculpture. (FARKAS, p. 27) Baumgarten, in a somewhat formalist approach
and German expressionism, which preached , which I intend to address later.
in art a new way of observing the world. What However, it is not a purely political platform, In Düsseldorf, “traditional and strongly
the Nazis defended, then, was the return of fine Beuys is not only a militant of transformation in hierarchical forms of class were replaced
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