Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was a German artist who worked in various media and techniques, including painting, sculpture, fluxus, happening, performance, video and installation. He is considered one of the most influential German artists of the second half of the 20th century. He was a founder of a provocative art movement known as Fluxus and was a key figure in the development of Happenings. Beuys is known for his "extended definition of art" in which the ideas of social sculpture could potentially reshape society and politics. He frequently held open public debates on a wide range of subjects, including political, environmental, social, and long-term cultural issues. He was a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1961 until 1972. He was a founding member and life-long supporter of the German Green Party. Beuys was born in Krefeld, Germany, on 12 May 1921, to a merchant father and a homemaker mother. He grew up in Kleve, an industrial town in Germany's Lower Rhine region, close to the Dutch border. He attended primary school and secondary school there, where he developed skills in drawing and music. He was also interested in natural sciences, Nordic history and mythology. He joined the Hitler Youth in 1936, when membership became compulsory, and participated in the Nuremberg rally that year. He later claimed that he salvaged a book by Carl Linnaeus from a Nazi book-burning in his school courtyard in 1933. In 1941, Beuys volunteered for the Luftwaffe (German air force) and served as a radio operator and rear gunner throughout World War II. In 1943, his plane crashed in Crimea and he was rescued by nomadic Tatars who wrapped him in felt and fat to keep him warm. This experience later inspired many of his artworks using these materials. He was wounded several times during the war and spent the last months of the war in a British prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, Beuys returned to Kleve and began studying sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1947. He graduated in 1953 and became a master student of Ewald Mataré. He also studied philosophy, literature and medicine on his own. He married Eva Wurmbach in 1959 and they had two children: Wenzel (born 1961) and Jessyka (born 1964). In 1961, he became a professor of sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he taught until 1972. Beuys began experimenting with performance art in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He joined the Fluxus movement in 1962 and participated in many international events and exhibitions with other artists such as Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, George Maciunas and John Cage. He also created his own solo performances or actions, such as How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965), I Like America and America Likes Me (1974) and 7000 Oaks (1982). In these actions, he often used unconventional materials such as felt, fat, honey, blood, wax, copper, iron and animals to create symbolic and ritualistic meanings. He also used his own body as a medium of expression and communication. Beuys was also involved in political and social activism. He founded the German Student Party in 1967, the Organization for Direct Democracy Through Referendum in 1971, the Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research in 1973, and the German Green Party in 1979. He advocated for ecological, humanistic and democratic reforms in Germany and Europe. He also supported various causes such as nuclear disarmament, animal rights, environmental protection and peace movements. He ran for the European Parliament in 1979 but failed to win a seat. Beuys died of heart failure on 23 January 1986 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was buried in Bilk Cemetery in Düsseldorf. His legacy as an artist and activist continues to inspire and influence many contemporary artists and movements.