Room 3
Education as Art
I Like America and America Likes Me/ Coyote
Note: All works are from the Thomas Modern, Munich Gallery; many of them belong to private collections preferring anonymity.
“To be a teacher is my most important function. To be a teacher is my greatest work of art. The rest is the waste product, a demonstration that has only the function of a historic document.”. JB
Beuys’s work from the sixties and seventies is steeped in the figure of the artist as teacher. Beuys’s own work in education radically changed the course of art teaching. In actions and in thinking as expressed in interviews and manifestos, the artist strove to create a more free and egalitarian society whose educational systems would reflect a vital and positive attitude.
Beuys considered education central to his “total work.” He was a professor at the Dusseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and the Free International University which he himself founded. The latter was an open educational space without restrictions or competition. It aimed to stimulate overall creativity by means of interdisciplinary teaching.
Beuys’s classes made use of experimental and experiential methods. They took the form of prolonged open debates to encourage students to develop freely by interrogating and altering established thought patterns. Beuys detested concepts like “successful” or “poor” student. His approach earned him a great reputation amongst the students at the Dusseldorf Academy as well as the disapproval of the institution, which dismissed him in 1972.
In all his classes and lectures, the artist used blackboards to make a “public drawing” and to illustrate his ideas in diagrams that he would then set so as not to lose what had been written in chalk. Key words like freedom, conveyer, socialism and transformation appear time and again. In relation to his teaching, Beuys said, “I am not a teacher who tells his students only to think. I say: act; do something: I ask for result. It may take different forms. It can have the form of sound, or someone can do a book, make a drawing or a sculpture. And even though I am a professor of sculpture, I accept all forms of creativity.”
For a three-dimensional load approaching for landing, 1960
(Para una carga de tridimensional a punto de aterrizar) ballpoint pen, grease pencil on cardboard. Signed and titled
15,8 x 20,9 cm
Fingernail impression from hardened butter, 1971
(Impresiones de uñas sobre manteca endurecida) fingernail impression in plastic box, perforated board. Signed and numbered edition of 150
24 x 21 cm
Phosphorus-Cross Sledge, 1972
(Fósforo – Trineo transversal) Phosphorus between 2 yellowish transp. PVC sheets, welded. With additional signature on metal clip edition of 100
45 x 45 x 0,6 cm
Telephone S, 1974
(Teléfono S) Two tin cans, one with symbol and brown cross, string. Signed and numbered edition of 24 + VI examples
4 3/4 x 3 15/16 (12 x 10 cm)
Green Violin, 1974
(Violín Verde) Multiple of violin painted green. This is an action-object - a replica of a violin played by the Fluxus artist Henning Christiansen during a concert called ‘…Or should we change it in l “Städtischen Museum Mönchengladbach” Mach 27, 1969
24 × 8,5 × 3,75 cm
Installation, 1977
Offset on grey-brown card board. Signed, numbered and stamped
edition of 100
30,5 x 43 cm
Letter from London, 1977
(Carta de Londres) Lithograph, matte black on wood base, tape recorder cassette. Signed, numbered and stamped edition of 115
89 x 118 cm
Le tovaglie della Biennale (two pieces), 1980
("Manteles de la Bienal" (dos piezas) Linen, leaves, pencil, stamp, coffee. Signed
95 x 190 cm
Blackboard I, II, III, 1980
(Pizarrón I, II, III) Silkscreens (b & w), a) blackboard I c. 1000 examples
b) blackboard II c. 1250 examples (proofs ), c) blackboard III c. 1200 examples
86,5 x 61 cm
From source to use, 1983
(Del recurso al uso) Wooden framed slate treated with gold pen
Signed, dated and numbered edition of 200
18 x 26 cm
Fat corner, 1987
(Esquina de grasa) Film in VHS, with sound, no dialogue.40’
Produced by : Erhard Klein
I Like America and America Likes Me/ Coyote
“¿Why do I work with animals? To express invisible powers. You can make these energies very clear if you enter another kingdom that people have forgotten, and where vast powers survive as big personalities. ”. JB
Coyote is one of Beuys’s most famous actions. It took place over the course of three days in May of 1974. During that time, Beuys spent twenty-four hours in a gallery with a wild coyote. René Block, Beuys’s gallerist in Germany, was opening a new space in New York and he invited Beuys to make a work for the occasion.
Beuys had refused to go to the United States for years to protest, among other things, the Vietnam War, but in 1974 he embarked on a tour. The project was not conceived as a work of art by rather as The Energy Plan for Western Man, a series of interactions or public dialogues. Later that same year, he undertook his longest and most widely acclaimed art action, I Like America and America Likes Me.
During the week that Coyote was taking place, “man and beast” engaged in a mute, slow, tense, and defiant coexistence. From behind a fence, viewers could witness the life, shamanic postures, and even play shared by man and animal who came to trust each other to the point of eating and sleeping in the same space. Each day what Beuys envisioned as tools for the transformation of reality were given to viewers of the scene. These were symbolic as well as material arms that would keep their bearer informed, protected, and active: a walking stick, gloves, a piece of felt, a flashlight, and a copy of the Wall Street Journal. Fifty sets of these materials were distributed every day.
The documentation of this action was thorough and, in 1976, Coyote-oneof the first publications registering an art action-was published. Art critic Caroline Tisdall, who was a long-time friend of Beuys, was one of the photographers who registered the action. She has written widely on the work.
Other actions by Beuys also involved animals. Indeed, the image of the coyote, as well as the hare, is often repeated as a component of his relationship with nature. These elements are frequently combined with his “fetish” objects: metal cane, felt blanket, fat, honey, oil, glove, hat, and flashlight.
Registro: Ja Ja Ja, Nee Nee Nee (Record: Ja Ja Ja, Nee Nee Nee), 1970
Pile of felt with recording tape 32 min. numbered and with signature stamped on the tape. Edition of 100 + 10 examples 30 x 30 cm
Cortesy Gabriele Mazzotta Editore, Mailand
The Table, 1971
(La Mesa) Super-8-film, metal film container, with brown-cross painted. An adhesive label with the autographs of Beuys and the coauthors signed and numbered edition of 200
19 x 4,4 cm
Sun Disc, 1973
(Disco Solar) Record master-mould with 2 brown-stamped pieces of felt. Signed and numbered edition of 77
38 x 38 x 4 cm
Noiseless Blackboard Eraser, 1974
(Borrador silente) Orginal blackboard eraser, felt with printed label,stamped
Signed, stamped and numbered edition of 550
5 x 13 x 2,5 cm
Notice to Guests, 1974
(Aviso para los huéspedes) offset facsimile and dollar bil under glass in wooden frame. Signed and numbered edition of 120 + XX examples
20 x 25 x 1 cm
Dillinger, 1974
Video tape and folded silkscreen poster in cardboard box. Signed and numbered on poster and tape cassette edition of 40 + XX examples
84 x 120 cm
I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974
(Me gusta Estados Unidos y a Estados Unidos le gusto yo) Film in 16 mm., Black and white, with sound, no dialogue. 35’
Produced by : Helmut Wietz
Note: Performance of a week at the opening of the René Block GalleryCortesy Galería René Block, Nueva York-Berlín
Magnetic Rubbish, 1975
(Basura magnética), Magnetic steel block with cast writing, in cardboard box. Signed and numbered on box and block edition
10,5 x 14,7 x 1 cm
Yellow, 1977
(Amarillo) Silkscreen yellow/blue with handwritten addition. Signed and numbered edition of 80 + some artist's examples
90 x 62,5 cm
Fontaine - New York, 1977
(Fuente – Nueva York)Silver bronze on cardboard and wood
44,4 x 34,7 cm
Dollar Bills, 1978
(Billetes de dólar) Two dollar bills with handwritten addition. Signed and numbered edition of 50
6,5 x 15 cm
Beuys and Dillinger leave New York, 1979
(Beuys y Dillinger dejan Nueva York) Hotel sign on paper on wood
Signed
40 x 50 x 5 cm
Soho News, 1980
(SoHo News) Orginal newspaper
Signed and numbered edition 25 + V
38,5 x 29 cm
Sun not Reagan, 1982
(Sol no Reagan) Record, record cover with red ring painted on. Signed on record and cover edition of 90
18 x 18 cm