Room 1
Introduction
How to explain art to a dead hare?
Note: All works are from the Thomas Modern, Munich Gallery; many of them belong to private collections preferring anonymity.
“To make people free is the aim of art. Therefore art, for me, is the science of freedom. We have the duty to exhibit that which we create with our freedom.”. JB
With each new exhibition of Beuys’s work, his endless revolution is re-ignited and extended due to the ongoing relevance of his proposals and protests. His vision of art and his role as educator, performer, shaman, environmentalist, and political activist make him an agent of social transformation. Due to his complex and multifaceted universe, he is one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century.
This exhibition evidences the themes-ideas-concepts that he developed over the course of his lifetime as well as his concern with “understanding art” and “art education”; re-conceiving politics; and actions and the use of materials. The exhibition also includes extensive documentation of the actions that formed part of The Defense of Nature, one of his most ambitious projects.Â
Drawings, sculptures, objects, installations, and works in video introduce Beuys and his versatile and complex thinking. The objects—relics of actions kept by Beuys for future exhibition—are presented in display cases not only for the sake of preservation, but also because the artist designed his own exhibitions and ways of presenting his works.
Because a chronological account of his life and work sheds light on certain hermetic aspects of his production, we have included a timeline in this exhibition. In Beuys’s own words, “art is not there to provide knowledge in direct ways. It produces deepened perceptions of experience…. Art is not there to be simply understood, or we would have no need of art.”
The ability to grasp art without resorting to “explanation” is, for Beuys, a quality innate to the human being, one that he affirmed in his celebrated statement “Every man is an artist.”
Warum? Why?, 1955
(¿Por qué? ¿Por qué?) Mixed media and collage on paper. Signed, dated and titled
63 x 45 cm
Untitled, 1960
(Sin título) Pencil drawing on lined paper Signed, dated and titled
29,6 x 20,8 cm
Action Cane, 1966
(Bastón de acción) Copper, solid
92 x 15 cm
Untitled, 1968
(Sin título) Handwritten text on paper
18,5 x 21 cm
An Object to Use, 1968-1969
(Un objeto de uso) Stamp and typewriter on paper. Signed
8 x 12 cm
Finish it, 1968-1969
(Finalízalo)Stamp and typewriter on paper. Signed
8 x 12 cm
Place material necessary for opus, 1968-69
(Colocar el material necesario para la obra)
Stamp and typewriter on paper. Signed
8 x 12 cm
Blackboard, 1972
(Pizarrón) Blackboard, silkscreen, printed on both sides, stamped. Signed
numbered on the information sheet, edition of 200
17 x 25 cm
We Can't do it Without Roses, 1972
(No podemos hacerlo sin rosas)Colour offset with handwritten addition. Signed and numbered edition of 80 + XX
86 x 61 cm
Elect the Green Party, 1975-76
(Vote al partido Verde) Handwritten text, pencil and stamp. Signed and dated with a dedication: 'For Karin Breuer thanking her for the birthday greeting'
36,3 x 22,5 cm
Capri battery,1985
(Batería de Capri) Yellow light bulb with socket, lemon. With signed and numbered certificate edition of 200
12 x 6 x 6 cm
How to explain art to a dead hare?
“The idea of explaining something to an animal conveys a sense of the secrecy of the world and of existence that appeals to the imagination”. JB
In the early 20th century, “incomprehension” of art became a topic of common concern amongst viewers. Beuys addresses this need to “understand” in his work How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, a performance registered in video that took place at the Alfred Schmela Gallery in Dusseldorf. Before a camera but no witnesses or audience, the artist covered his face with honey and gold leaf and walked through the gallery with a dead hare in his arms, showing it the paintings and whispering soundlessly to the animal. Beuys seems “to explain” without saying anything and, in so doing, he reveals a position: there is nothing to understand; everything must be experienced through intuition and imagination. ”The problem lies in the word ‘understanding’ and its many levels which cannot be restricted to rational analysis.”
This video lays out the artist’s thinking so that the viewer, with his or her own tools and imagination, can approach any work of art.
Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt
(Cómo explicar obras de arte a una liebre muerta), 1965
Film in 16 mm., Black and white, with sound, no dialogue. 20’
Cortesy Galerie Alfred Schmela, Düsseldorf