The Essential Joseph Beuys - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500092672 ISBN 13: 9780500092675

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2016

Synopsis

Celebrates the forty-year oeuvre of one of the most important and influential visual artists of the postwar era

Subject to passionate controversy during his lifetime, the work of Joseph Beuys is now considered one of the most significant and influential contributions to twentieth-century fine arts.

The Essential Joseph Beuys locates the artist’s oeuvre as he saw it: part of a larger, philosophically based practice emphasizing direct democracy, free access to education, and the restructuring of society to meet ecological requirements. A total of 152 works from Beuys’s many fields of activity―drawings and watercolors, prints and multiples, sculptures and objects, spaces and happenings―arranged in chronological order demonstrate the artist’s formal versatility, creative richness, and conceptual depth. The peculiar poetry of the materials Beuys used―felt, grease, honey, wax, copper, and sulfur―emerges along with the gentle melancholy that suffuses the work. Alain Borer analyzes the world of Beuys’s thoughts and imagination with special reference to the artist’s written and spoken statements.

This survey is an essential introduction to the work and conceptual world of Joseph Beuys that will appeal to anyone interested in twentieth-century art. 160 illustrations in color and black-and-white

About this title

Review:

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), who reached cult status in his native Germany, was perhaps the most important artist to emerge in Europe after WW II; he was certainly the most influential thinker and teacher among artists of the postwar generation. His doctrine was that "every man is an artist," and his more radical aims included a restructuring of the economy and free access to all educational institutions. Beuys considered art a medium for social and political change, and the prosaic materials he employed--felt, animal fat, and wax were among his favorites--had a spiritual dimension and could be invested by the artist with healing power. His iconic "felt suit," for instance, expresses the idea of physical warmth. Arranged chronologically and spanning four decades, this is the only book that provides a definitive survey of this innovative artist's work in every medium--from drawings, sculptures, and printed works to objects, environments, and actions.

About the Author:

Alain Borer is a French poet and writer. He has been a professor at the L’École supérieure des beaux-arts de Tours since 1979, and a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, since 2005.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0500092672
• ISBN 13: 9780500092675
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240