Joseph Beuys

(Krefeld, 1921 – Dusseldorf, 1986)

Visual artist explored different media and techniques in his work, basing his proposal on the cathartic nature of art. He formulates the notion of the “creative man” to question the role of art and the artist in the era of post-capitalist and post-socialist real socialism. The principle of social plastic is the way to achieve and recognize the free man in a free world. In his imagination he links the scientific vocabulary with non-artistic materials, which, maligned by plastic processes, propose a new consideration of art and the participation of the viewer. He shares with the group Fluxux, of which he participated in some of their meetings, the dissolution of borders in every artistic discipline. He understands that sculpture is the creative process by which an idea is given shape, which makes it similar to thought. His numerous international one-man exhibitions include a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the René Block Gallery in New York. His work was exhibited at documentas III-VII in Kassel, Germany, and at the Venice Biennales in 1976 and 1978. In the collections of the Hessiches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany, the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven , Holland, there are important works of his.
In the banquet_ exhibition, different works are shown, such as his conference and the documentation of the Aktive Neutralität debate. Die Überwindung von Kapitalismus und Kommunismus, held on January 20, 1985 in Rorschach/Switzerland. Also his project Operazione Difesa della Natura, where he proposed the synthesis of his artistic and human philosophy and placed the practice of art as an instrument for the creation of a new culture. Soziale Plastik, was a manifesto, broadcast by satellite at Documenta 6 in Kassel, where it explains the catalytic role of art in the construction of a new self-organized and participatory social architecture.